


Cum mortuis in lingua mortua

by oxfordRoulette



Series: Catacombs [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Illustrated, Necromancy, Physical Disability, Quadrant Confusion, Slow Burn, Swords & Sorcery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-26
Updated: 2015-03-01
Packaged: 2018-02-04 16:49:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 41
Words: 116,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1786246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oxfordRoulette/pseuds/oxfordRoulette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You picked up a curse by the river and now someone's gotta deal with it. Grab your spellbooks and buckle your cuirasses, because things are going to get bumpy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. BOTCH!!!

**Author's Note:**

> This story is like a sexually tense AD&D session played by neckbeards who have a vague knowledge of fantasy fiction and suck at taking this seriously. Or, if you prefer, this story is like my other Jadekat AU, but Karkat dies more. In fact, [the level of sexiness is proven to go up the more Karkat dies](https://s5.postimg.org/4h5h5np9z/0.1.jpg) (he gets better).
> 
> Have fun! I can't wait to read your feedback.

There's something gross on your face.

There's something gross on your face that is sending you rapidly vacillating between a mild state of panic and really wanting to punch something. And you never want to punch something! You might be a goddamn battle tank, but you're the kind of tank that distracts the big scary monster with your sexy charm (see: deadly magic); not the kind of tank who has a tendency for fistfights. Why do that kind of thing anyway when you can use a magical blunderbuss+3? You can think of literally no scenarios where your knuckles would be better to use than your gun.

Except right now, when you could so easily, so EASILY jump off Halley and punch that peasant over there in the...

Whoa! Whoa, hold up Jade! Punching is bad! That farmer is probably minding her own business, farming like, wheat or something. Or wait, since it's early spring, maybe she's plowing? Preparing the fields? You make a mental note to learn more about farming, since that's probably a good thing to know when you start faking you're an earth witch again. Which is basically all the time. Fuck your stupid, genetic powers! You should just RIP YOUR FAMILY TO SHREDS- No, no, no! That is quite possibly the largest overreaction in the history of overreactions! 

You try to run your fingers along the cut on your left cheek, but like before, you aren't able to touch it. Your hand basically hits a force field generated from the wound, and you can't press in any further than an inch above your skin. Whatever this thing is, it's powerful. Powerful enough to stop even a magically-inclined host from examining it. 

You have got to get to Rose's and get this sorted out. Really soon too. You wonder how many peasants you could take out in a fit of rage. Probably like, twenty. At least.

You urge Halley along the dusty stone path with your heels, being very careful not to kick too hard. What the heck kind of curse is this? This is definitely the opposite of how you wanted your dungeoneering day trip to go down. Having to run out and escape halfway through the place really puts a damper on your adventuring spirit. What are you going to do with the picnic basket you packed for a nice afternoon lunch in the cursed abandoned temple of ancient horrorterrors?

Silly question, the answer is of course, PUNCH THE BASKET INTO OBLIVION!! You turn around, and with a fierce ferocity befitting your wolf-kin, smack the picnic basket off of Halley's rear. Sandwiches and strawberries fly into the air, and there's a moment of sinking regret as you watch the pretty birdseed smorgasbord Dave prepared for you scatter everywhere. Even though you don't really like birdseed-ish things and don't know why the hell Dave keeps packing you these, it still makes you sad as you watch the discarded picnic basket hit the cobbled road with a rattling thud. Okay, uh, that was a terrible decision you just made. You should probably... hurry it up. That picnic basket could have been a peasant's head! 

You spur Halley into a bouncy trot towards the town. The crumbly, centenarian walls marking the borders of farmland begin to mesh and meld together, forming something of a boundary for the sleepy civilization of Cammor. Well, sleepy is a gentle way to put it, it's only sleepy because Cammor is headquarters to a silly conglomerate of thieves who like to pick on people who go out after ten at night. And people who have petty feuds with them. And just random people. The Rouges actually bother everyone, even themselves. Everyone who lives there is either a thief or an alchemist, it's ridiculous. Gosh, what a shitty town.

But it makes sense why Rose Lalonde, magical curse extraordinaire, wants to hole up in the place. From what you can tell, she makes a KILLING off of curing all the people who got magically poisoned, cursed, burned, and afflicted with genital boils by The Rouges' famous bolts. She sure knows how to overcharge.

You're absolutely positive she'll be able to cure this thing on your face. She didn't go to Seer Seminary for kicks and grins, after all!

Halley trots over a hill, takes a left at the fork, and there it is. Nestled in the valley between two forested slopes: The Southern Solemn Gates of Cammor.

They're oxidized copper with palmed smears of bright red paint, a callback to your absolutely least favorite patron god. Why does LITERALLY everything involving you have to be green? And death-y??? That is just NO FAIR AT ALL, you should just kick the gates down, punch a hole through the iron defenses, and blunderbuss the hell out of the guards to release your rage!

Ha, funny joke, Jade! Ha, ha. You nervously laugh out loud to try to ease some of that weird tension away, but the only thing that happens is the lone guard staffing the top of the gate gives you a look like you're carrying the plague. Which, well, you might be. Not entirely positive on that one yet. You wave up to him to let him know you're going in, and he nods back. Wow, that's sure irresponsible. Letting girls with strange oozing cuts on their face into a crowded town? You resist the urge to toss something at him while yelling 'you're shit at your job, suckass!' Never look a gift-packbeast in the mouth, after all! Even when you're filled with a distressing amount of homicidal rage and confusion.

You re-situate your pack over your shoulder and hop off Halley. You give him a pat on the snout, and his beady eyes look up longingly at you, concerned. Oh, don't worry Halley! You would never be able to rage at such a cute dog with such intense eyebrows! You only wish your eyebrows were that cool.

You leave him to wander the wilds with his other dog kin, or whatever the heck he does, you never figured that out, and enter the town. The entrance for small groups is on the left of the gate, situated kind of off the path, so a little dirt trail from plenty of pedestrians leads to the round door covered in stylized copper engravings of The Lord. You're supposed to tap the tip of the doorframe three times as you pass under it, but you can't be bothered. You've met the guy, and you honestly don't think he pays enough attention to mortal matters (outside of judging souls and forcing artists to draw him murals of people gently embracing) to care. 

You enter the Rain District, named as such because of the literally awful noise it makes when it rains over the thin copper roofs. Thankfully, it's pretty dry out, otherwise you'd have to PUNCH- uh, a soft pillow. Yes. Soft things. No punching. 

Rose's place is right on the outskirts of the district, a sturdy little building with long purple cloths draping down under the ribbed awning. It's a pretty strategic place to be with one side completely blocked off by the city wall, which is good because of all the people she manages to insult. If she wasn't such a crafty broad, and if Dave wasn't around, she'd be in some real trouble with The Rouges!

Speaking of which, looks like he's in his usual place.

"Sup, Jade." He cringes, his head drawing back. "What the hell's on your-"

It wells up in you before you can stop it, a terrible urge to yell and scream and punch. It takes all you have to not tackle him violently to the floor, and you only succeed at that because you know Dave is one swiftly trained douchebag knight and would probably sidestep you. But focusing all your energy on restraining yourself physically leaves your mouthhole wide open! 

"Dave Strider! You broke my heart, you..." You fumble for an insult. "... bird... seed... fucker!" 

You smack your hands over your mouth as the rage fades away. Oh no! You're totally turning red right now, you can feel it.

"You know it, stick my dick in birdseed all the time. Just love those little nutritious grains around my big human schlong." He resumes a neutral expression. "Okay, also, what? Thought we were over that little incident."

You sigh, looking at the ground. "Sorry Dave, I didn't mean to say that. I think I got cursed with some kind of anger magic. I need Rose to take a look at it..." You give a guilty smile up at him, trying to emulate Halley's best puppy eyes. That always used to work on Dave. "Let me in?"

"You're supposed to mail ahead for this shit you know, reserve an appointment and all that stuff." He reaches around, grabs the hidden entry flap of the curtain. "Guess I could make an exception for you. Only because you're the best aviculture hobbyist I've ever had the pleasure of being kept by."

You turn your head to him, stick out your tongue, and say, "Asshole."

"Anger magic again?"

"No, that was from my heart!"

You walk into the tent as Dave lets the flap fall back down. It's dark inside, Rose likes to keep it ambient and spooky. You figure it's because she's kind of bad at being ambient and spooky so she needs the environment to make up for it. Your eyes quickly adjust in the low light, seeing Rose cross-legged at a square table near the floor. Orange pillows heap up behind her, made slightly red and green and white by the symbolic Death Orbs she uses to... Um... Symbolize stuff? You never really knew what those things were for. To look all mystical maybe.

She gestures towards you, grinning. "Hello Jade, I've garnered from my peculiar eavesdropping abilities that you've got quite the interesting curse placed on you. I'd love to take a look."

You cross your arms. "Do I get a BFF discount?"

"No." She tilts her head. "I don't know why you keep asking this."

You groan, sit down across from her. You've got to admit, Rose keeps her pillows in tip-top extra comfy shape. "At least turn the lights on?"

"Nope."

"C'mon Rose, you don't need to keep everything all dark for me! I mean, is all this important?" 

"Of course, half the cure is Headology anyway. It never hurts to set up a bit of mood lighting to quickly progress the onset of health." She brings her hands up from under the table and reaches towards you with a maniacal grin. "Now, let's see what the Seer of Light can do for you."

She runs a hand through the air, just above the cut on your cheek. You try not to fidget or think any violent thoughts as she concentrates on the blackened, oozing scar. You silently draw air through your teeth and hope it won't start acting up while you're in a contained space with Rose. She tries to press her palm in further, but hits the same force-field you've experienced before. She 'hmmms' to herself as she withdraws her hand.

"And... where did you say you procured this magical scrape?"

You rub the back of your hand, looking anywhere but Rose. "Um... I didn't?"

She smiles, not like she's being kind or anything, but like she's beginning a card game she likes with a bunch of people who suck at strategy. "This wouldn't happen to be the abandoned temple dedicated to the elder gods that we've been warned about since children? The temple which would curse all who walked upon its grounds? The temple which, as I recall, you described to me this morning as 'just a place with treasure! Ha ha. No spooky scruples present here at all! Don't try to stop me!'"

You cringe. "Um, I didn't use the word scruples? Besides, I didn't think it would be... real? Just folklore stuff."

You look back at Rose, who now has her face buried in her palm. "Jade Harley, you're going to be the death of me. And not because you're even dragging me along to wanton dungeons anymore, but because one day you're going to come to me with a mystical curse so terrible and vile, looking upon it will immediately cause my mind to shatter from sheer dark power." She shrugs. "You, undoubtedly, will be fine after all of this, since your disturbingly sunny disposition is somehow your best and last defense on top of all your other bizarre abilities."

"Thanks?" Was that a compliment? "Anyway, is there anything you can do about this?" You point at your cut, helpfully.

She frowns, scrunching her mouth to one side, staring at your black scar. She doesn't look disappointed with it, more like she's disappointed with herself. "This is a very, very powerful curse, Jade. And I hate admitting when something carries more power than me." She taps her fingers on the table. "So I won't admit it. I'm going to say this is outside my range of specialty, and send a recommendation along to a... doctor. Yes. Who conveniently happens to have settled down in this very town in these past few months." She smiles, just a hint of one, but you pick it up and immediately get suspicious. You narrow your eyes.

"WHICH doctor?"

"Oh, you've definitely heard of him. He's one of the few beings in this land who is entirely immune to magic."

Kankri? He's not a doctor, he's a religious icon. "Since when was Kankri allowed to leave Hgothrar?"

"No, no no no, not Kankri. I'm pretty sure dealing with a curse would be preferable to seeing him." She smiles, teeth fully revealed. "I'm sending you to the _other_ one."

 _Oh no_. Oh nooooooooo. Oh no.

You fail to reply fast enough so Rose continues. "Still can't remember? How could you not? The troll who failed not only at being a knight but at competing for your affections..."

Dave chooses this moment to pop his head through the curtains behind you and say, "Oh, oh, Rose, I got it. I pick, 'who is Karkat Vantas, second place on the Jade Harley train?' for five hundred points."

You slam your head on the table and groan. You hear Rose shift on her pillows to reply to Dave. "Good job Dave! Five hundred points _and_ a gold star! Although might I remind you of the 'Seer-Patient confidentiality pact?'"

"Whatever, it's just Jade. Not like I haven't explored her pacts of confidentiality already."

You shoot your head up and glare at him. "What does that even mean!"

"Easy there grayface, it means I held the first place trophy. Choo choo, motherfuckers."

Anger roils through you. "You might still have been holding it if you didn't turn into a BIRD for three years!"

His mouth drops open in mock horror. "You know, I'd be offended if you weren't cursed with some kind of 'cut open old wounds' thing. Now I'm just mildly entertained. Can't stop, won't stop." He steps through the curtain, apparently deciding his bodyguard abilities are best utilized indoors. "Why are you sending her to the fucking Blood Doctor though? As hardcore as his name is, I wouldn't send my BFFsie to a past pity-crushee." 

You HATE quadrants. You especially hate the heart one, the 'pity' one. You don't want a prospective date to pity you, you just want them to have a big cock. Either attached or in a box, whatever. As long as the color is fun. Karkat probably had neither of those things. Er, wait, maybe the fun color.

Oh, and you prefer love as an emotion, that too. After about a million in a half failed relationships and one-night stands with trollkind, you are almost certain they're incapable of understanding the human mating ritual, no matter how many biology textbooks you show them.

"I'm sending her to Karkat due to my profound, educated, and indubitably correct opinion as a medical professional. The diagnosis is: Jade is utterly fucked unless she finds someone that can easily touch the wound to work around the curse."

"Why don't I try?" says Dave. "I've got magic warding accoutrements up the wazoo, and I'd do anything to help a buddy get out of whatever weird shit goes down at the Troll Dungeon."

"I believe the popular title of his office is, 'The Last Resort,' but he prefers to call it..." Rose coughs, preparing to launch into an overly-proper accent. "Why Are You Even Fucking Talking To Me, Shut Up And Get On The Operating Table." She returns to her normal voice. "You're welcome to try, Dave, since you do indeed have magical accoutrements in your wazoo."

"Up my wazoo, dammit, you're making it sound like I have all these prayer wards erotically lodged in various orifices, instead of artfully draped across my skirts."

He reaches a hand out towards your face. His fingers are swathed in magic-cancelling papers written by the two priestesses at the Death Temple, there's no way he won't be able to-

You feel a magical pulse on your cheek, just as Dave snaps his hand back with a very uncool "ow" sound. "Shit, that's some serious curse you got there. Sorry, Jade, but I've got to agree with the medical professional here. You're fucked."

You sigh. "Thanks for trying. I guess I'll go see... Karkat." you pause, thinking. "How long's it been, anyway? Four years?"

"Absence makes the heart grow fonder." says Rose.

"Bleh, shut up! I'm not even going to think about that." You stand up, brushing your skirts down. "Are you sure I don't get a BFF discount?"

She smiles warmly. "I'll give you half off because I failed to cure you."

"Only half?"

"I've got to pay Dave somehow."

Dave nods. "Birdseed and breadcrumbs really put a toll on my pocketbook."

Rose is very expensive, but even though you didn't explore the temple like you really wanted to, you've still got money to pay her off. Thanks, royal allowance! Thanks for allowing you to be really lazy and just kinda accrue money over time. You dig ten gold coins out of your purse and place them on the table.

"Any more questions?" says Rose, as her delicate fingers slide the coins towards her.

"Hmm... what would happen if I just... didn't treat this thing?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you knew. I expect the terrible side effects which often occur in eldritch literature would progress rapidly. Tendency for uncontrolled violence, inspiring fear in others, rapid development of bizarre sexual habits... you know, the usual."

"Um..."

Rose shrugs. "I dabbled in it for a while, just for the roleplay factor."

"And here I thought you still had maidenly virtues." says Dave.

"Maidenly virtues tend to disappear once you're in the nether-throes of a few shadowy tentacles with a hot woman." You can't see her eyebrows due to her bangs, but you know she's waggling them. Dave makes a disgusted face.

"Anyway, I would highly recommend getting rid of your curse as fast as humanly possible. Or, as fast as quarter-werewolfully possible, in your case." Rose says. "You may just feel slightly irritable now, but from here on out it will only get worse. I suggest you stay away from any emotions or actions of vice until Karkat can give you a further diagnosis. _If_ he can give you a further diagnosis."

"That means no hardcore BDSM in your sex dungeon, Jade." says Dave.

You ignore him. "I don't think I'll have a problem with that! I'm not a very violent person in general."

"Of course. I wish you luck, Jade. Let me know what Karkat says about your... grimdark affliction."

"Grimbark." says Dave. "Grimbark."

You and Rose both stare at him.

"Get it, because she's like, a quarter-werewolf. And they... bark." 

"Dave Strider, that is a terrible pun and I expect we will never use it." says Rose. "I'm not even going to give you the barest hint of laughter for that one."

"Fine, whatever, don't appreciate my comical genius. I'll just be over here, making puns and shit, alone."

You stretch, already feeling a bit better now that you've got a plan. You like having plans! Even if the plans involve somebody you haven't seen in a long time and don't really have a desire to see again. Well, you gotta do what you gotta do.

"Karkat's been holed up in the inner quarter of the Rain District, lately." says Dave. "He's got a big ugly sign on the front of the door, it's pretty clear what goes on in there. Can't miss it."

"Um, okay. I'll be able to find him. Thanks, guys!"

You say your goodbyes and step outside into the cold spring sun. Time to get this curse fixed. Hopefully Karkat works quickly, and you'll be on your way, easy as pie!

It would really suck if this turned into a full-blown quest, after all.


	2. Get Along, Try Again

The district is bustling, even in this chill afternoon. Spring has just started to make its way into this seaside continent, causing its peoples to shed at least one of their many fur coats. The smells of a fresh start and new life fill the air. Those are like, your favorite smells. There isn't much you like about the cloudy north, but relief after a long winter is incomparable to anything in this world.

If you remember correctly, the inner quarter is code name for the back alleys of the Rain District, where everything's cramped and dark and the weaving canals of the city aren't present. It's also a headquarters for a big chunk of Rouges (you think the ones that frequent the inner quarter are called The Name of the Rouge), making Karkat's location a dangerous spot to be indeed. How does he get by without a bodyguard as an operating medical practitioner? Oh, wait, you guess he used to be your knight. He probably doesn't need one then.

Although he was a _really_ shitty knight. Most of the time.

You enter the green square gate to the inner quarter, with its many intricate copper cubbyholes which hold small offerings to the Death Gods. You only like one of the two Death Gods, but you're pretty sure everyone shares that point of view and just doesn't want to say anything bad about The Lord. You do note his side has way cheaper offerings than the other.

As you wander through the claustrophobic alleyways, you realize you never learned why Karkat stopped being a knight. He was assigned to guard you for empiric training purposes, since you were already a developing battle-witch and could protect yourself if he failed. And he failed A LOT. Gosh, just thinking about it makes you mad! You've never met someone who was so poor at defense. It's not that he didn't have the technique right, it's just... one hit and he'd be toast. 

He told you it was because of his unique blood color, and because he's completely immune to the vast amount of medical procedures known, which made him extra cautious. Which made sense, but, still... He could have worn some armor or something. Look up 'glass canon' in the library glossary and there would be a picture of Karkat's mugshot, mid-yell.

You wonder if he got a bad hit or something. Although you're absolutely sure that the Alternian/Earthen empire knight coalition wouldn't give him up that easily, even if he did have a mortal wound. At the very least they could have made him a palace guard. Wouldn't that be funny? Karkat Vantas, at the whims of a very bored John Egbert.

You stifle a giggle as you wander down a narrow, damp alleyway. Green buildings with thin balconies tower above you so it blocks out all but a little sliver of the sunlight. Is it around here? You haven't seen any kind of distinctive sign. Maybe you should ask someone...

You remember when Karkat actually started getting good at fighting, for one brief, awesome moment. Some chump tried to kill you one evening and you were barely awake enough to grab your blunderbuss before Karkat weaved around the guy and scythed him in the leg. It was super rad! You've never seen anybody _dance_ like that, not even Dave, who prefers to fight with fakeouts and flashsteps. Of course, the heads pulled him to go fight in the Juggalo conflicts as soon as he started developing a backbone, and totally vanished from your thoughts. How the heck did he become some kind of weird doctor? That is certainly an unexpected plot twist!

You pass a building with cheap, white, paper windows, with a large logo carved on the door. It's a stylized cut, dripping blood and singed with blackness from manually burning the design into the wood. It takes up almost the whole door. 

Well, that certainly is distinctive.

You take a deep breath, put your hand on the door, and push.

His office is small and cluttered, with books and stained rags covering the floor, the only clean surface being the traditional stone operating table in the center. Maybe 'clean' is the wrong word for it, there are so many stains on that thing in bright red and a few other lowblood colors it makes your stomach queasy. Good doctors and other magical medical practitioners so rarely stain their operating tables, looking at this sets off alarm bells in your head.

He's leaning against the only bookcase in the room, thumbing angrily through something in Alternian.

Hmm, he looks like he grew into himself. He's at least your height now, maybe a little taller? He's got an air of... something... that he didn't have before. Confidence? A slightly straightened posture? It's hard to tell.

He didn't notice you come in. You close the door, fold your arms, and say, "Hi, Karkat."

He shuts the book with a slam that makes you jump, then yells "Why are you even fucking talking to me, shut up and get on the-" He stops as he looks up at you. His face gets noticeably softer, although he's still on the far end of the angry scale. "Oh, Jade Harley. How long's it been?"

His voice is way less accented with his native Alternian flair, you guess he must have been living in Earthen territory for quite some time now. He still kind of purrs his "r"s a bit, making him sound like a wannabe thug.

"Um, four or five years maybe?"

The volume returns with a force. "Not long enough, *human,* I was enjoying my quiet here without your nagging voice and resurrection tendencies. I wasn't even thinking about you at all during these long, golden, happy years, and it was incredibly fucking pleasant."

Ugh. You can feel the memories of all the headaches this troll has given you flood into your head all at once. Fuck it, you should totally risk grimbarkness. It's not worth this. He keeps talking. "How's Dave, by the way? Still capturing your totally inferior attentions?"

You groan. "No. He turned into a bird and I dumped him."

Karkat loses his angry face out of sheer confusion. "Wait, what? What the fuck? He didn't tell me that. You dumped a bird?"

You shrug. "He got better? It's kind of a long story."

He blinks at you, opens his mouth like he wants to ask, thinks better of it, and throws the book he's reading into a pile behind him. "So, Jade. Why have you dropped your ridiculously magical ass into my hive? Isn't it usually supposed to go the other way around?"

Troll folk tradition states that the fate of all witches will end with a house falling on them. You stifle a giggle. That was kind of funny! Maybe Karkat's changed a bit. 

You point at your cheek. "I got cursed with something really bad. My regular magical practitioner can't even touch it, so she passed me on to you! Can you take a look at it?"

"Sure, always go to the 'normal' doctors first," he air quotes, "with their 'magic' and 'knowledge.' You will soon learn that my way is ultimately superior, thanks to my shithole of a genepool." He folds his arms again, then nods at the stone table. "Anyway, yeah, I'll take a look. Take a seat on the operating table."

You unceremoniously unhook your traveling cloak and toss it aside into a relatively clean pile of cloths. You also toss your hat on top of it. As you take the first few steps towards the stained slab, you notice something's a little odd about Karkat. He hasn't moved an inch from his spot at the bookshelf. Arms still crossed, still backed up against it.

You look at the table in front of you, and can't help but cringe at all the red splattered over it. Karkat waves his hand, like he's trying to wipe away your facial expression. "Fucking relax, Jade. Most of that's mine."

Holy shit. The table has a hell of a lot of old blood stained into it. That's all his? You sit down out of sheer shock, and its low enough for your feet to just barely touch the ground. Okay, now you are very curious as to how Karkat operates this place. 

"Alright, doctor Karkat, I'm now ready for my appointment!" you say, giving your best 'people pleaser' smile.

"Fantastic. I've now tricked the human test subject into thinking I'm a trustworthy authority figure." he says. You laugh at that. "Just need to grab this..."

You watch Karkat slide his back down the bookshelf. He extends his left leg as he does so, allowing him to stretch his arm out towards a pile of vanilla cloth. Although you're not really sure why he decided to slide down a bookcase all weird to grab something right next to him. Is he practicing being a sexy pole dancer?

"Karkat, what are you-"

He reaches out for a smooth black pole on top of the pile, and grabs it by the end, pulling it out from under a few cloths. It's long, tapering, with a bend at the top and a wavy handle painted dirty orange and yellow. He pushes himself up with it, places his left foot tentatively on the floor, and takes the few steps towards you with his weight distributed on the cane.

A cane. Karkat's using a cane.

He favors the right foot, keeping the cane in the same hand to balance out his weak side. He doesn't stagger at all, making you think he might just have it to look fancy, but watching the muscles in his right arm pop as he grips the handle tells a different story. He clearly isn't able to put much weight on the weaker leg.

That's it. That's why he's not a knight anymore. That's why the knight coalition let him go, why he's been living on Earthen territory. The Alternian government would have culled him if he stayed there, blood mutation be damned.

You feel like something terribly heavy just crushed your insides. 

You say, "Oh no..." A simple outburst of emotion you can't control. It's solemn, your voice saturated with the feeling of sadness that suddenly welled up in you. But as soon as your voice echos in the room, that changes him. His features tense up, go flat, and the clack of the cane stops right in front of where you're sitting. He looms over you on the table, features utterly dark, and you lean back out of reflex.

In the flattest, hardest, most intense voice you have ever heard him speak with, he says, "Do you pity me."

It wasn't a question. You start fumbling, totally panicking. Pity means something totally different to trolls, and you're not sure what to think. Is he implying you want to be intimate? Is he implying you're being a jerk? You don't know! "I- um, what- no? No."

"Really." he shifts, places all the weight on his cane. "Because I swear I heard your voice just *dripping* with red inflection, like I was a dying baby bird you found in your fucking lawn ring."

He grabs you, actually grabs you, by the collar, and pulls your face up to his. He speaks quietly, only to you, but his voice booms in your ears. "Listen, Jade. I have to do this with basically every fucking customer that comes in here, so I've got this down to a goddamn art form. I am not *looking* to fill my red quadrant, now or ever, and I'm not going to accept your bullshit, half-assed pity. I've thought long and hard about this, and I've plucked too much self-respect out of my own goddamn asshole in my early 10s to allow myself to be wept and preened over for a stupid leg. I don't deserve your pity, and I mean that in the way I'm better and greater than any bullshit empathy you can throw at me. I know you know that I was flushed for you, but let's put that all behind us, because I sure as fuck don't want it requited now." He lets go of your collar, and you sit back down with a soft thump. "Now, let's do some business, and _don't fucking mention it again_."

You're shocked, utterly shocked. And yeah, okay, you pitied him a little just now... Maybe a lot... But that was really intense. Part of you wants to yell, 'whoo hoo, go Karkat! Don't take shit from anybody! Not even me!' but that part is restrained by the more culturally accepting half of you. He's cutting off an entire quadrant for himself? That must be like, A Really Big Deal. You haven't heard of a single troll who didn't want a partner in the heart square.

You watch him walk to a tall chair covered in a pile of books, and he swipes them off with his arm. You should probably say something to break the silence. You suppose asking about what happened would be kind of a douchebag move right now... Hmmm...

"So, um, what did you do after... uh, you know?" Stop fumbling! There's nothing to be nervous about! "The conflicts?"

Wow, great going Jade. Way to be sensitive. He doesn't seem to get angry though, well, doesn't seem to get angrier than usual, and answers you while kicking a particularly large medical textbook aside. "You know, the only thing you *can* do after you piss off the empire and prove your theoretically infallible magical immunity is worth shit all against clowns: Go get schoolfed medical textbooks and live as a traveling doctor." 

You narrow your eyes. "Karkat, there is no way you went to Seer Seminary. You can't do magic."

He picks up the chair with his free arm, tilts heavily towards his favored side, and brings it towards the slab you're sitting on. "Ha ha. Joke's on you, barbarian-warrior girl with an intelligence level of like five, I went for a whole fucking perigree before I ditched that shit like a handful of deadly nightshade."

"My intelligence level is not five! It would totally be maxed out!" You stick out your tongue. "Why'd you quit?"

"Oh, I don't know, because I'm immune to any practice divination, clearly not fit for a cooperative environment, and everybody there sucked ass." He sets the chair down in front of you, then leans his cane against the side. "I took the expensive-as-hell textbooks with me though, they didn't notice for a while."

"Er, and nobody's come after you for that? I mean, you live in a town filled with assassins now..."

He swings around from the side to hop on the chair, becoming eye level with you. "Already had four attempts in the meager time I've been living in this shithole." he says. "Only one was for the textbooks. The other three had reasons like 'you can't just scream at people on the street like that!' and 'why aren't you wearing any armor do you want to die?' and other weakslime neighbeastshit."

You scoot your knees to the side so he can get in closer to have a look at your cheek. "You killed them?"

"No, I gave them a hug, a pap on the face, and a fucking lollipop. Of course I killed them." He unhooks the clasps under the metal panel on his right leather bracer, then peels it off. He drops it on the floor. "I'm not some kind of huge bulgefuck though, I dropped them off at the temple. Death is an easy fucking fix, Jade, you should know that."

Well, you do, but you would never call it _easy_ with the two priestesses. Those three Rouges are probably working off their debt with games of chess and sexual favors. Eaugh.

He reaches his hand out to take your face in his palm. He avoids touching the scar, choosing to gently push your head so he can take a look at it. He leans in, pressing his knees into your thighs, and his hands are all calloused against your face. Wow, this is way more of a physical examination than you're used to. Usually doctors just kind of wave their hands and they suddenly know what's wrong with you. Karkat's inspection makes the back of your head tingle.

"Yeah, okay, definitely evil. Getting a lot of evil vibes from this." he says into your face. Gosh, he's loud.

"That's it? I could have told you that!"

"And it makes you all gray when you get loud, excellent." he backs off, and you suddenly feel much calmer. "Or maybe it's just me. Whatever. Take off your gander lenses."

"No way! I'll be blind without them!"

"Who is the medical professional in this room? Your framed spectacles are getting in the way of treatment!"

You decide it's best not to argue, but only because you might possibly turn into a deadly she-beast if you do. You take off your glasses, and place them next to you on the gray table. "Fine, whatever."

You're incredibly farsighted, so Karkat just looks like a big fluffy raincloud from up close. "Okay," he says, placing his thumb at the top of your cut. "This might hurt a bit. I have honestly no idea what the fuck will happen, as vast as my knowledge of curses is, I'm pretty much stumbling around like a blind troll in the dark." He pauses. "One that doesn't use scent to navigate, anyway. Here goes..."


	3. Rogues Do it from Behind

He presses down at the very tip of the scar, beating you, Dave, and Rose in the face-touch Olympics by a mile. Bright red, magically resistant mutated troll blood is apparently no joke! You wonder how potent it must be to combat an incredibly powerful curse's defenses while still pumping around inside Karkat.

He drags his thumb down the length of your scar, slowly, and something icy cold wells up in you. Ouchie. You feel like a freezer with a bunch of vines growing in it. 

Karkat yanks his thumb off your face. "Shit, fuck, bad plan. Didn't think that one through."

The cold starts to fade away and you shake your head to try and get the warmth to return. "Bleh, that felt all gross and cold. Don't do that!"

"I am a medical professional. I know what I'm doing."

You cross your arms. "I'm doubting you! I'm doubting you!"

He holds what you think is a middle finger in front of your face, then says, "Doesn't fucking matter, because this curse is clearly open and shut. I'm going to dampen this black magic faster than you can snarf a grubsteak. And you can snarf one pretty fast, so that's saying something."

"It's because I appreciate fine meat cuisine!" you say. He ignores you, slipping his hand into... a pocket or something, you can't really see what he's doing. He takes out something thin and shiny. A needle? Is he going to sew you up? 

"Um, has that been used?"

He shrugs. "Yup. Hold still."

You're about to throw your hands up and go grimbark with how unsanitary that is, but he doesn't go for you. He punctures himself towards the tip of his ring finger, enough to draw out a small amount of blood. 

He sets the needle down on the table next to you, then tilts your chin again for a clearer view of your scar. He places his ring finger gently against the tip of the scar. "Now this, this will hurt. Like the first time. Just imagine I'm popping the human horrorterror cherry and have yourself a nice party with your female friends afterwards."

You are about to tell him that is a sexual myth and that he wouldn't know anyway, but he presses down before you can respond. You immediately feel it, the warm squish of magic-controlling blood against the cold curse on your skin. You feel something small and dark inside your core that you never noticed before start to squirm.

He draws his finger down the left edge, the thing inside you curdling with the shock of becoming caged. Your cheek starts to burn, like you spent eight hours in the sun without a hat, but you're strong! You stay perfectly still as Karkat finishes his line, then starts to draw down the other side.

The thing gets panicked, starts trying to break out of you with lashing, cold tendrils. They feel like whips cutting deep inside you. But you can't pinpoint where, it's this terrible, sharp pain all over. You clench your teeth, hard, as Karkat finishes his second line.

It lashes out again, and you dig your nails into your palms and hold your eyes shut tight to try to combat it. You just have to wait it out. You can do it, Jade.

"One more..." mumbles Karkat, placing a dot above the cut, then lazily tracing a curvy line down the center. The thing is panicked now, lashing against your muscles, your ribs, your heart...

As soon as he gets to the bottom, it stops.

You exhale all the mental power you were trying to hold in, and blink open your eyes. You feel lighter, somehow, like your curse got packaged up and put away. Okay, cool. No more grimbark!

"And there you go," says Karkat, sloppily wiping his finger on the rough slab. Ow. "Bet you'll think twice about going to inferior health practitioners now."

You don't hesitate. "Nope. Not at all."

"Yeah, you're fucking welcome. Glad you're so grateful I saved your ass from a probably terrible fate." He scoots his chair back.

You pap your hand around on the table for your glasses, find them, and put them on the bridge of your nose. Ah, so much clearer! "Okay, you're right. Thank you. How much do I owe you?"

He stares at his ring finger like it wont obey his demands of clogging up faster. "Monthly installments of 19 gold and 95 silver."

No way! You thought this was a permanent cure! And that's totally robbery! "What!?"

"What did you expect, something permanent? Yeah, haven't taken enough art classes for that miracle. You're going to have to come back when that masterpiece I just drew rubs off, or until you find somewhere to-"

He's interrupted by the the loud rip of the paper front window.

He's up on his feet, sword arm reaching behind his back for a sickle, before you can even react. He blocks a crossbow bolt midair with his bracer just as you start to grab your blunderbuss+3. Actually... Do you even want to grab your blunderbuss+3? Karkat said he'd fended off plenty of attempts before, this Rogue is clearly only after him, and you kinda want to see how he fights with a broken...

Grr, Jade, stop being a jerk! Karkat is just a normal troll! Well, not really but, um, you know what you mean.

He swings his sickle up to block a needle while grabbing his cane. He uses it as a fulcrum to quickly lever the chair towards the Rogue as she lands in the room. She rolls to the side to dodge, but he's already recovered and moving towards her with sickle at the ready.

He shifts, pivots on his cane, strikes out at her backhanded. She squeals in surprise and blocks him with the butt of her crossbow, which is sliced off and falls into the clutter on the floor. He brings the sickle back down handle-first, whacking her in the head, and she clutches her nose in pain as she raises her crossbow in a pitiful attempt to fire again.

He's fast. Not fast like, long distance sprinting fast, but like he knows exactly where he's going to end up and doesn't question it for a second. Other people, including you, tend to think about what they're going to do before they do it, but not Karkat. He's clearly only existing in the present, every past and future iteration of him can deal with the consequences later.

When you knew him, Karkat Vantas flailed and fought like a kid with nothing to lose. Now he fights like he's got somewhere to be, and that somewhere is embedded in his opponent's forehead.

She tries to back out the window, but she's not going to make it. Karkat is way too good! She gives one desperate, final, pull of her crossbow. Karkat raises an arm to block it and...

wrong arm.

"FUCK!" he screams, violently, as a bolt embeds itself into his bracer-less forearm. "Fuck me. Seriously. FUCK. ME."

The Rouge stands up as Karkat starts having a mild panic attack, wipes the green blood away from her nose, looks at Karkat, and says:

"That was for rejecting my pan of brownies when we were seven sweeps!"

She nods at you, gives a salute, and hops back out the window. You watch her go.

"Ummm... okay. You alright, Karkat?"

He stops screaming, takes two deep breaths that sound like he's hyperventilating into a paper bag, and stands up. He clutches his chest. "Yeah, yeah, I'm good. Totally peachy keen."

"I can't believe you rejected a pan of brownies..." You hop off the table and walk over to him. "Who even does that? She probably spent a long time on those!"

"Whatever, past me was an idiot, we all know." He waves his arm at you, little droplets of blood flying around the room. "Am I supposed to pull this out?"

"I don't know! You're the doctor here!"

"If this is a fucking genital boil one," he looks at his impaled arm like it's something gross he doesn't want to eat at the dinner table. "I'm going to find Nepeta Leijon and laugh in her face for trying to curse my sex life. The first reason for that being 'I don't have one,' the second being 'I don't get cursed, you insensitive ass.' Who the fuck doesn't know-" 

His pupils swell like black pools. "Doesn't... Doesn't know..."

In one violent motion, he plucks the bolt from his arm. It makes a wet 'shllp' noise as he pops it out, a big drop of blood plopping out after it. "Fuck," he breathes. "Fuck, I think that was poisoned."

"Oh shit!" you say. You hurry over to him. You don't know much about poisons, but you sure know a lot about plants! "What'd you get hit with?"

"Who's... who's the fucking doctor in this room, Jade?" he points a finger at you, wobbles on his cane. "I'm supposed to be, to be asking YOU the questions..."

He stumbles, falls against you shoulder-first, and you catch him. He's surprisingly heavy, you were expecting him to be entirely composed of fatty tissue, but you guess that doesn't make sense since he was a knight with a lot of bicep. As you support him with your arms bent, your superior quarter-werewolf senses catch a whiff of the poison lingering on his wound.

Well, that's definitely nightshade.

"Karkat... um, no good way to put this... you're going to die."

"I-- Dammit, what?" He feebly tries to clutch at your arms, but all he manages to do is poke you with his sharp nails. Ow. "Jade, fuck, you have to... you have to... NOT have me play fucking chess for my soul, I am so fucking done with chess. Bring me back any other way, just not chess." 

"Oh, that's silly, you wouldn't be the one playing chess anyway. Besides, I can just-"

His eyes roll to the side, trying to focus on you. "No, no, I know what you're going to say and I platonicly hate it already. Promise you won't do any of that weird... soul trap... body... corpse... thing... that thing you do..."

"But it's so--"

"No!" he rasps out. His leg gives out and you fully take on his weight. You slide him slowly to the ground, flipping him around so you can see his face. "Promise. Me."

You groan. "Fine, I promise. Jeez."

"And if you... fuck it up.. tell my landlord... that this place is worth... at least 250. Maybe like, 240... with a broken... window... I don't care what... that shithole... says..."

"What the heck kind of last words are those?" you say.

But he's not there to hear you any more.

His eyes immediately go glassy white, a perk trolls have when they die that you've never figured out the evolutionary purpose of. But you have figured out why trolls don't shit themselves when they die, and because trolls have evolved in a way that makes pissing off their predators more important than relaxing their muscles. Things tend not to eat you when you're filled with icky stuff! Yum-my.

He's got this stupid death-face on too, you're pretty sure he'd be cross-eyed if he had pupils. That's so silly. You should fix it.

Wait! Wait, no, Karkat made you promise you wouldn't do that. You can't. Although...

You believe his words were 'don't do the soul trap body corpse thing,' and not, 'don't do the soul _insert_ body corpse thing.' Those are two very different things! Besides, he is assuming an awful lot asking to resurrect him in an inconvenient way, and you won't do it for very long. You do need to get him off your lap anyway.

Aaaaaaand you kinda want to see how he drives. You can't help your scientific curiosity.

You take a quick look towards the window to see if anyone's watching. Nobody's passing by, which is good. You can't have people around here knowing that you're not an earth witch, that would really ruin your reputation!

You take a deep breath, close your eyes, and begin dreaming of the dead.

Things spring to life around you, buzzing with vibrant lights and pretty swirls, which you always thought was kind of ironic because they're all deceased. Everything's always so pretty here, where the world of the living goes pitch black. The wood in the bookshelf spins pink in its tomb, the cloths on the floor burst in flowers of blue, and the long dead critters beneath the earth call out to you with flashes of purple and green. But you ignore all that, and focus on the loud, chattering corpse on your lap. He's bright and golden, like most dead things in possession of a soul. 

You've got a lot of bad things to say about your necromancy, but lack of color coding isn't one of them.

Freshly opened neural pathways light up beneath you, forming a roadmap to gently used muscles just waiting to be tested out. It's not occupied, just an empty body. All you need to do is slip in there and ride that sucker to corpse-funtown.

You send out a portion of your soul to the very top of Karkat's cerebellum, slipping in as natural as anything. He's easy to fit into, surprisingly, although you suppose you're only equipping him at the most basic level. You don't spend too much time rooting around in there, you're here for motor control and motor control only.

You extend your influence down his right arm, flicking neurons on and off appropriately to test your reach. Muscles pulse and squirm in your grasp and _oh shit he feels amazing_. You could hang out all day in here. Talk about well-trained! 

You wiggle his fingers on his hand. You're not completely detached from your own self, so you also have to wiggle your own fingers to do it. But you can still feel each delicate tendon pumping, each lumbrical expanding pleasantly, the dorsal interossei so used to powerfully grasping swords and canes giving your real body shivers. Awesome.

You give a tentative test of his arm, moving it around like you do for morning stretches. It works wonderfully, popping and contracting in all the right places, although you can't get the full range of motion since he's in your lap. Time to get him off.

You move his arms down, pressing against the ground, which is a really awkward thing to accomplish since you're also doing this in tandem and probably look like some kind of four-legged frog-related sex position. Maybe you should put a bit more of yourself in? Yeah, then you don't have to look like a weirdo.

Oh, wait, no, no, no, Jade! Remember what happened last time? You can't do this!!! And this time there would be nobody to get you out of it.

You sigh, just in your own lungs, and release most of your control. Karkat's arms give out without life supporting them, and he lands sloppily back in your lap. As you glide back up his hands, making your exit, you make a pit stop in the muscles of his face. You pause on the eyelids, shutting them in a brief motion you barely have to think about.

In one swift whoosh of soul, you return to your own body. You open your eyes, and things go back to a less-bright world. Sigh.

Well, it's not like you couldn't just have picked him up anyway. It would have been more fun the way you wanted to move him, but you really do need to tone it down a notch. Show some restraint, Jade!

You roll him off your lap, and he hits the ground with a limp thud. You stand up, brush down your skirts, then pick him up torso-first. He's heavy, but it's no problem if you throw him over your shoulder. It's not like people are going to stare, this place sees so many dead bodies it's a wonder how they function.

Okay, so, four options: One-- You ignore Karkat and just wrangle his soul back into his corpse. What's so bad about living in a dead body for a while? Psh, Karkat's a butt for not allowing you to do that. Two-- You use your really expensive resurrection spell. Big no on that, you're not super motivated to get Karkat back that fast. Three-- You go directly to the two Death Gods. Er, no. Also not motivated enough. Four-- You play a shitty game with the Death priestesses and hope you win or Karkat's fucked. Well, that's the best of four evils, so...

As an afterthought, you pick up his cane to carry with you. He'll probably need it when you get his soul back from the priestesses.

You wonder what game it will be this time. You hope it's not chess.


	4. De Duva

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapters will usually come out faster than this, I was on vacation.

“Hi Jade!” says Aradia. “Long time no see!”

You wave at the trio with the hand holding Karkat's cane, trying not to shift his body off your shoulders. That would be bad if you just threw him down on the dingy wooden floor! Things might get jumbled.

The other two wave back, although Jake doesn't seem enthusiastic about it. Rude! How long has it been since he's seen his favorite cousin? Too long to be grumpy, anyway.

Damara points at you, then says in terrible, accented Common, “What on your face?”

“Oh, um, long story. But it involves the guy I have so casually tossed over my shoulder! Anyway, I would really appreciate it if you guys would play a game with me so I can win his soul back.”

Aradia claps her hands in delight. “Wonderful! Let's play-”

“-chess!” all three of them say in unison. Even Jake. The betrayal, it stings.

“No!” you say. “We are not playing chess for somebody's soul again! I am so done with chess!”

“Not even...” says Aradia. “... Double chess?”

“No, Aradia, not even double chess. Anything else.”

“Badminton?”

“No.”

“Twister?” says Damara.

“No!”

“Marksmanship?” says Jake.

“N- wait, yeah, that one sounds good. Why'd you suggest a shooting contest when you're totally going to lose!” you giggle after that line, making sure he knows you're joking around.

He pushes up his glasses in a bad attempt at being cool. “Not anymore, cousin, dear Auntie has been forcing me to take lessons with a few dapper members of The Rouges. I don't mean to toot my own horn, but I've got quite the pistol-ur repertoire at the moment.”

Oh, that changes things. He might not have posed a threat before with just his basic gentleman's pistol training, but if he was trained by a talented Rogue...

This might be fun!

Damara gestures at you, leading you into the main hall. The entryway of the Death Temple itself doesn't show much, it's all rotten wood and old smells, like the inside of a stable. The biggest room of the temple is where things start getting interesting.

The building is Cammor's very first, and it shows. Of course, it's expanded since way back when but every expansion kept the previous version of itself intact. Primitive pots rest on modern pedestals carved from marble, burnt lanterns dangle from knotted tapestries, coins from all different eras are pressed into the softer clay pillars, and the vast oxidized ceiling is domed with the copper craft of thousands of artisans. In short, the main entryway of the Death Temple is super cool! They should put paintings of this place on postcards or something, maybe get a tourist business going.

Damara directs you towards a relatively clean pile of ripped, green pillows, which you unceremoniously dump Karkat's corpse and cane on. He lands with a dry flop, causing a poof of dust to choke up from the inside of the pile. Yup, Jade, you sure know how to take care of dead people!

Aradia gets your attention by wriggling her fingers. “Anyway, might I direct you to the back courtyard? Not only is there an outdoor chess set for all your death related needs, but there is also a full badminton court!”

“And a shooting range.” says Jake, quietly.

You nod and smile, and allow yourself to be pulled along by Aradia. She leads you through tapestries and beaded curtains and rusted windchimes to the back courtyard.

It's rectangular and long, surrounded by the same green walls as the rest of the temple, and has the haphazard appearance to match. Grass that has clearly not been magically trimmed in years grows in patches of yellow and green, an overturned chess set sits ignored in the corner, and a badminton net chewed up by some critter or another lies on the ground dead center. There are miraculously still some targets plastered on the opposite side of the long, rectangular courtyard, which will have to do. They're a ways away, far enough to shoot at, close enough to not make you sweat. Besides, your blunderbus hasn't failed you yet! Except once, but you don't like to think about that.

Jake gives a weary smile. “Well now, since you're a good chum of the temple, I say we skip all this nonsense ritual and get right down to-”

“No!” yell Damara and Aradia, causing Jake to jump up like a rabbit.

“Ritual is important!” says Aradia. “How else will we feel like we're doing something worthwhile?”

“Isn't...” says Jake, rubbing the back of his head. “Isn't... resurrecting people worthwhile no matter how you look at it?”

Aradia sighs, over-dramatically. Damara clutches her heart in mock pain in the background. “I guess we could do the short one today,” says Aradia. “Just for you, Jade!”

You and Jake both smile in relief. Ritual pregame, halftime, and post-game is way too much to handle for rounds of chess or whatever. You're here to get in, shoot up some shit, win Karkat's soul back, and get out.

“How about a good game of three outta three?” asks Jake.

“Sounds good! It'll be quick!” you say.

Damara raises her hands to capture the audience's attention. “I will do opening prayer.”

She begins to speak in Alternian, and her accent is a little weird, so you have to try hard to understand it. “< _May the gods of death smile down upon the favored parties, one for each head of the Lady and Lord. One for the green..._ >” she nods at you. “< _... who really needs to grow a pair of big, dangling, balls, and one for the red..._ >” she nods at Jake. “< _... who needs to fucking get laid. Seriously._ >”

You can never tell if she's talking about you or talking about the Death God you represent. Aradia doesn't seem to mind how weird it is, as she starts applauding. “Go right ahead guys, you may begin!”

“I can start.” says Jake, taking his place in front of the target. He aligns himself in the traditional noble's dueling position, one hand behind his back while the other wields his pistol. You guess The Rogues haven't trained him out of that habit yet. He squints one eye and sticks his tongue out to aim, then fires with a resonant bang.

“Wow,” says Damara. “You always far off? I hate to be man or woman who sleeps with you.”

He was pretty off-center. The hole the bullet left is in the furthest ring possible, way over on the right. Well, at least it will make things easier?

Jake points at Damara, completely frustrated. “Shut your babbling piehole! It is your fault anyway!”

“How my fault that Jake cannot keep it together inside of me?” she waggles her eyebrows.

Jake clutches his head and groans like he's about to explode from pressure buildup. “For the last time!” he glares at Damara. “I am not interested in necrophilia! That's just uncouth!”

Streams of white light crackle around his hands, siphoning outwards and into Damara's torso. Her eyelids droop, her body sags, and Aradia catches her as Jake removes his control over her soul. Huh. He's gotten better since you've last seen him. He could barely keep Damara's soul trapped for five seconds, much less fifteen minutes. Now it looks like the only thing holding him back from keeping her in her body for a few hours is pure anger at having to deal with her. You don't blame him.

You immediately notice the change in his disposition. He stands up straighter, looks more confident, and the corners of his mouth turn up into a dopey half-smile. “Ah, yes, that's the stuff. I feel much better without having to keep that loose lass down to earth.”

“I would imagine!” you say. “Why do you guys still keep her around, anyway?”

Aradia drags Damara's corpse to an unoccupied part of the lawn. “Tradition! She's been harassing shrine maidens and bachelors for generations!”

Jake nods solemnly. “It builds character.”

That's... probably true, actually.

“Anyhoo Jade, I say you step up to the plate and give it a go.”

You grin, then take your usual firing position. It's nothing fancy, you pretty much just bunker down and aim however you please, but it works like a charm. The butt of your blunderbuss fits snugly into your arm, the wood is smooth against your palms, and the trigger just buzzes with energy crying to be released.

You line up with the same target Jake used, breathe in, and fire.

The larger bullet plows right through the center, leaving a hole the size of an apple. It's a bit more to the left than you're happy with but at least a win is a win!

Jake crosses his arms. “You got this round for free, Jade. I'll show you a real contest in this next bout!”

“You're on!”

You back off as Jake takes position again, aiming for the next target. He does look a lot more professional this time, like he knows he's going to hit it and wants to show off how cool he is.

He takes aim, shuts one eye, and fires.

“Bam! A direct hit!” he says, pumping his fists. “Looks like this battle is going to be a full three rounder, Jade. That was a rather perfect shot, I should say!”

It is pretty good, one shot straight in the middle of the target. Jake wasn't just bragging! There's only one way to beat him in this round now, and you're pretty sure you can do it.

“I'll try anyway,” you say, stepping into position. All you need is just a little extra time.

You can do this, just line it up with the target, look down the flared barrel, and give yourself a few more breaths...

Breathe in, and... fire.

The resounding echo of the target shattering against the dirty courtyard walls tells you all you need to know about who won the round.

“Holy guzzballs,” says Jake. “You just blunderbuss'd that target into oblivion!”

“Aw, Jade, now we have to get a new target!” says Aradia. “You know our budget is low this year.”

“Don't worry about it!” you say, slinging your blunderbuss in your holster under your cape. “I'll just remake it really quick...”

You ignore Jake's protests that 'he's the man of the temple and therefore it's his job' and close your eyes. The world lights up, the courtyard walls begin to buzz with olive green, the dead grass starts to flicker while in the slight breeze, and Damara's corpse flares in the dark like it's practically begging you to possess it. But you ignore all that and focus on the pieces of old, dried out wood scattered at the end of the lawn. It's so easy to just stretch out your hands, give a fraction of your fingers away to each little shard, and kinda... just... wriggle them like this...

Everything shoots together like a well made puzzle, and you open your eyes to see your handiwork. Perfect!

“Dangnabbit, you've gotten better at this than I. I guess being a free-spirited adventurer has its perks over being some nobody temple boy...”

You pat Jake's shoulder. “It's okay, it's not your fault. It's my mom's for assigning you here! If she had been my aunt and your mom, I would definitely be where you are right now. You'd probably be even better at all this necromancy stuff than I am if you got to adventure all the time... I mean, I'm not even that good at it, I go out of control on the regular...”

Jake thinks about this. “C'mon Jade, don't be so hard on yourself, the bird incident was an accident. I'll go get your friend's soul back now.”

Oh, right, you were here for Karkat. Wow, he reeeeaaaally owes you one for getting his life back. Maybe he should give you like, three months of blood supply for free? But wait, that won't work, you can't do ice magic to keep it cold and usable... How can you go look for a cure if you're tied down to Karkat and Cammor?

Aradia leads the both of you back inside to where Karkat's corpse lays undisturbed in a grody pile of pillows.

“Um, Aradia, can I do the short prayer this time?” says Jake.

“Of course! You have my permission!”

Jake sighs in relief, then claps his hands in front of him, standing directly over a face-up Karkat. You watch Jake concentrate on something in the distance, hard, and a white disc acting as a halo pops up behind him. He claps his hands again, causing red and green discs to appear behind either shoulder.

“As it is in my power to do so as a blessed Necromancer Apprentice, christened representative of the Lord, I hereby announce the game has been played and fairly won by the party of Life. The proxy stands here before the host, and wishes for his soul back. Um, Amen?”

The three discs converge on Karkat like a speeding wagon, ramming through his chest and making him jolt with the impact. His chest heaves in one great, shuddering arch, and the white disc removes itself, dripping with black liquid.

“Ugh,” says Jake, staring at the dripping disc. “How did this chap kick the bucket?”

“Deadly nightshade.” you say, cheerfully. “I've never seen it taken out of a corpse before.”

“The color is incredibly interesting, isn't it?” says Aradia. “The flower actually turns black after it progresses through the bloodstream!”

Jake cringes. “Bleh. Go talk about your... womanly stuff somewhere else!

Before you and Aradia can smartmouth him, Karkat sits up at neck-snapping velocity, bellowing at his usual volume.

“--And make sure to put fresh fucking milk out for the cats, none of that cheap shit---Uh. Oh. Oh, okay, totally missed that I died right there. Fuck.”

He looks around, his very much alive eyes flicking between you, Jake, and Aradia. “How long was I out? Days? Weeks?”

“Like half an hour.” you say. “I'm efficient.”

“Yeah, whatever you say. Ow!” he looks down at the crossbow bolt wound on his arm, fresh blood beginning to bubble up again. “What kind of phony hacks are you fucks? I'm supposed to be cured of anything that sent my soul to the snaking pile of feces that is the afterlife!”

You cross your arms and lean over him. “Stop insulting them! You didn't die from the crossbow, you died from the poison! Which is totally gone from your system!”

“Who's to say I *didn't* die from the rapid firing arrow slinger? I could have a very important artery there, you wouldn't-”

He's interrupted by a slight cough from Aradia. She holds out her hand politely.

“Five gold.”

You glare at Karkat. He sighs, reaches into his pocket, and deposits the coins into her hand.


	5. The Plan

As soon as you're outside, the temple doors closed behind you, Karkat attempts to speedwalk into a narrow alleyway in a lame attempt to escape. You easily dash in front of him, blocking his way by spreading your arms out against the walls.

“I didn't hear a thank you!” you yell, making sure whoever's living in those buildings can hear you. 

He plants his cane down into the dirty road and side-eyes you. “Did you play chess for me?”

“No! A shooting contest!”

“Oh, well, that's not that bad then, you actually *enjoy* that kind of obstinate fuckery. No thank you needed!”

He tries to get past you by waving his cane threateningly, but you're not going to take that! Karkat Vantas owes you one, and you're going to milk it out of him with all you've got. You grab him by the collar, swing him around, and push him into the wall. You get right up in his face, which totally fails at being intimidating because he's taller than you and you're not really that scary of a person in general, but it's the thought that counts.

He's staring at you like you're some kind of bemusing insect he's picking the wings off of. Seriously? What a jerk! Who does Karkat think he is?

“You owe me, Karkat! Do you think I resurrected you because I was trying to be nice?”

He thinks about this. “Yes?”

You also think about this. “Okay, yeah, you have a point. But name someone else in this whole city who would have gone through all that trouble for you!”

He thinks about this. “Dave.”

You also think about this. “... Okay, yeah. Dave would. But only after grossly posing your body next to some sexy puppets and hiring somebody to make a beautiful painting of it so he could hang it over his fireplace!”

“Wow, that was incredibly fucking specific, did he do that before?”

“Yeah, he started to do that with Rose one time, but then he felt bad and she started to smell funny so he had her revived. She ended up trying to model for the same picture again but Dave chickened out. I don't know why she did that, some kind of ironic sibling thing, I guess?”

“Their sense of humor is disturbed beyond all belief-- completely irreparable.”

“I totally agree!” you say. Wait, stop, you're getting off track again! “Anyway, the point here is that you owe me something! And while I've got to admit I would usually let this kind of thing slide with somebody else, you have been a deadly combination of 'total jerk' and 'having something I need.' Which is... your blood!”

Karkat runs his hand through his hair and groans in resignation. “Fine, I'll give you a discount. Does that make you happy? Does that appease you, O' tempestuous eldritch human?”

You back off a little, deciding he's not going to run off anywhere. “No. I've been thinking about this a little...”

“Oh, please, don't trail off, I'm hanging on every single one of your precious words.”

“Shut up! Anyway, I've been thinking, I need to find a cure for this weirdo curse, right? I can't be dependent on you forever to keep me calm when I fly into some evil rage!”

Karkat folds his arms, his tone becoming harsher. “Need me to keep you calm? Was that pale flirtation I just heard? I thought you weren't into that, quote-unquote, 'weird troll shit.'”

You give him a shove on his shoulder, like how you imagine one of the Rogues would do when they're robbing somebody. “Ew, no! This is strictly a business relationship! And I didn't say 'shit!' But, anyway, I have decided that you'll repay me by helping me find a cure for my grimbark affliction.”

Karkat starts to object. You can see his mouth beginning to gape open with the very tip of a yell, but he hesitates before the first word. He backs down a bit, gets a little quieter. “Uh... yeah. Yeah, I can do that.” he gets louder again, more confident. “Hell, I can do that right now if you want, save us the time and the pain of having to deal with each other ever again.”

Somehow you doubt this would be the last you see of Karkat Vantas, but you let him continue anyway. “I'm listening.”

“My, uh, fuck, what's the word in Common? Broodmate. I don't like that word though because it implies we have some kind of connection, when in reality any relationship we share beyond 'vaguely irritated hemospectrum overlappers' is purely up to guesswork... Anyway, my broodmate has a library up in his mountain hovel. Now, seeing as when the Empire made me fucking truck my ass over there all the time in some poor attempt to make us a magically immune power-duo, I spent literal *perigrees* hiding in that novel-filled paradise. To make an elaborate, rambling story somewhat shorter, let us just say I ended up trying to test the limits of my, uh, 'blood abilities' by reading magically penned monk scrolls.”

“... Um, what?”

“You know, cursed tomes, ancient scripts, the usual. I did this because my past self had to out-compete my future self in levels of sheer idiocy, apparently. Saw a lot of shit I shouldn't have. Whatever, that's all past-me's doing, fuck that guy. Anyway, I happened to 'read' one of the larger tomes with a bunch of ever-blinking lookspheres on the cover.”

You have to interrupt him here. “Like, real, living eyes?”

“No, like googly lookspheres with sticky paper on the back, plastered on some holy, ancient manuscript. Fuck you, yes, they were actual eyes. Reading this thing was undoubtedly a terrible idea in hindsight, but thankfully, it didn't do shit to me. Except for give me the vaguest idea of what this book was supposed to accomplish, conveniently, which was to ensnare the soul of whoever read it.”

“... Okay, how will that help me? I don't want to be in a book!”

He leans his cane against his body in favor of gesturing wildly. “No, no, see? You're not *you* when you get overtaken by your evil gray-skinned curse. All we, wait, I mean, all *you* need to do is go there, go fucking grimbark to your hearts content, and read the book. Curse gets sucked out, you close your viewglobes real quick, and you're fucking done.” He grabs his cane again. “I need to check with my broodmate to see if he still has the book before you go, but I'd say I've solved this fucktruck of a case for you.”

You're about to ask how you would even be able to go on a three month long journey alone to go see Kankri Vantas with a condition that requires daily attention, but Karkat interrupts you.

“So, since I am clearly the more capable leader out of the two of us, I'll propose a plan for you to get your cure and get out of my thinkpan bubble. First: I write a nicely worded letter to the other Vantas and let you know what he replies with. Second: While you're waiting, you go bulge around town until you find some ice mage or enchantment or some shit to keep a vial of my blood cold for a perigree-in-a-half so it doesn't deliciously fester. Third: I take some valuable time out of my day to teach you how to color on yourself so you can keep your curse at bay while on the road.” He pauses to take a deep breath. “And, fuck it, I'll even keep drawing pretty pictures on your face bump for free while we wait, because I am a charitable god sent down from the heavens of niceties. Does that sound like a fucking plan or does that sound like a fucking plan?”

Well, you really can't argue with that. He is doing everything you asked him to do, although if Kankri doesn't have the book or if it doesn't do what Karkat expected... Hmm, well, you suppose that would mean you and Karkat would have to look for a different cure, and you're not sure you want to start with that can of worms just yet.

“It sounds good to me, Karkat.”

“Fucking fantastic, can you send letters?”

“Only under twenty grams? I'm not super good at magic in general, just necromancy, which is kind of like anti-magi-”

“Whatever, I'm not sending a fucking manuscript, although we might be getting one back. I'll need you to mail it for me.”

Ugh! Karkat has gotten way more irritable since you resurrected him. If you could go grimbark right now you would have punched him in the face and not even felt bad about it!

He starts the walk back to his office immediately, and you have to jog a little bit to catch up with him. The whole trip is largely done in silence, with you lagging behind Karkat down the narrow, winding alleyway and the echo of his cane omnipresently rebounding against the walls.

He sets to work on the letter as soon as he gets in his office, grabbing a terribly crumpled piece of paper on the floor and scooping it up onto the operating table. He also grabs a candle and lights it with a stray match, plopping it onto a metal holder. He reaches over to a shelf, yanks off a inkwell and pen, and dips it in way too hard to be practical.

You lean over his shoulder to watch him write.

WHAT'S UP, SHITWHISTLER.

REMEMBER THAT MYSTERIOUS TOME YOU HAD THAT YOU SAID NEVER TO LOOK AT OR IT WOULD TAKE YOUR SOUL AND CURSE YOU INTO THE FIERY PITS OF M'GORT'PORT'WAD? YEAH, JADE HARLEY WANTS TO GO LOOK AT IT SO SHE CAN BANISH HER ALTERNATE EVIL SELF. DO YOU STILL HAVE IT?

HUGS AND FUCKING KISSES,  
KARKAT

He folds it haphazardly, crafting it into a pathetically shaped trapezoid. He takes the candle, angles it, and drizzles a thick diagonal line over the opening flap. He places the candle back upright, then drags his pinky nail through the hardening seal three times. The final effect is much like the cut design burned onto his front door, but like, six times uglier and more red.

He writes 'Kankri, Hgothrar' on the front, then hands it to you. “As peachy keen as I am to do this shitty errand quest myself, I am unable to use the post. Mail this.”

You take it without comment. As soon as you get out of here, the better, so you say a pert goodbye and march out the door.

You close it behind you, and then sigh with your back to the wood. You're going to mail this, go back to Rose's place, take a bath without washing your face and try not to think about how dirty that is, and then go to bed. You guess... you'll see him tomorrow so he can redraw his design on your cheek. 

In the meantime, where are you going to find somebody who knows how to do ice magic? The closest you've ever met to somebody who can do that is your brother, and he just knows how to generate cold air. Maybe Dave would know, Dave knows everybody.

You've really made a terrible mistake adventuring today. This is the worst curse you've ever had!


	6. Road Trip

Karkat closes the manuscript, sets it back down on his operating table, and turns to you with a deadpan look.

“I have no idea what the fuck he just said.”

You scratch the back of your head. “Um, I skimmed it? I think he wants you to go look at the book yourself?”

“What? Where'd you see that?”

“Page 12, towards the bottom I think.”

He reopens Kankri's “letter” again, licks his thumb, and flips to the appropriate page.

<\-- _and therefore discriminatory. For these reasons I have outlined briefly in sections one through five, I request that you accompany Jade to acquire the accursed, soul-stealing book. 'Request' is not exactly the right word, 'require' is more appropriate, however I did not want to sound like I was implicating any sort of_ \-->

“Whatever,” says Karkat. “That's just him being load gaper full of dank air. He's been trying to get me to visit him for literal sweeps, although I can't tell you why. The guy is so fucking obfuscated it's a wonder he even functions. Despite what this long-winded nookcranny says to the contrary, I can guarantee you can still waltz in and get the book by yourself.”

You reach over and flip the manuscript a few pages further. “No, I can't. See?”

<\-- _and don't you dare attempt to wriggle out of your hemo-familial duty. While I hate to use that term with you, I realize it is a necessary vocabulary sacrifice to get you to visit. Jade, when she arrives to collect her cure, must be accompanied by you, Karkat. I will not give her the book unless you are there. I also realize this may further your unhealthy dependency issue, however_ \-->

“Seriously?” says Karkat, slamming the papers together. “Is he fucking kidding me?”

“Why does he even want you to come see him so bad?”

Karkat throws his hands up in the air, groaning. “I don't know! He explains the reasoning, in great, erect, elongated detail, but I can never understand even a fraction of what he's trying to shit out of his grubchute.”

“If it helps any, I can't understand him either?” you say, smiling.

“No, it doesn't help, your first language isn't Alternian. You don't even know half of the six hundred traditional poetic verb forms of 'murder.'”

“You know, Karkat, I really don't think talking about murder is ever going to be important to me.” He starts to debate you on this, but you hurriedly cut him off. Smooth. “Anyway, I guess it looks like we're going to be stuck going on an adventure together?”

Karkat glowers at you, his eyes squinting into little coin slots. “No. Hell no. I don't give a shit about what Kankri Vantas says, it's a definite no. You're going to have to go get it by your lonesome, or find another cure for your curse. It's that fucking simple.”

Ugh! How infuriating! Karkat's stubbornness isn't even fair! It's not like you want to go on this journey with him either, but you don't see many other options left. Four days in Cammor and you didn't hear a single word about an ice mage, didn't pick up any word about an alternate cure, and completely fudged your drawing lessons. Seriously, you suck at drawing with blood on yourself, you almost poked yourself in the eye like, seven times. You really hate to even think this, but you would prefer it if Karkat accompanied you.

It's time to get threatening.

“Karkat!” you yell, standing up and planting both hands on the operating table. “If you do not help me get to Kankri Vantas' library, I will personally wipe your blood off my face and start directing my grimbark rage at you!”

He doesn't react. “You wouldn't dare, you pansy-ass wriggler.”

“I would!” you raise up a sleeve to your face, threateningly. “See! I'm not afraid!”

“I'd beat your evil self, no problem.” says Karkat. “ _< I'd totally ------- you too._>”

You lower your arm. “Um, what was that word?”

“Well, Jade 'clearly did not do her flashcards' Harley, you would have understood if you knew some more 'murder' synonyms. That was the one that involved skullfucking.”

You stick your tongue out at him. “Yeah right Karkat, you're too much of a softie to do that to me.”

He stands up to glare at you. “Am not.”

“Are too!”

“Am *not!*”

“Okay then,” you grin, making a motion to wipe the blood on your cheek off. “Prove it. Kill me when I go crazy.”

He's right, you're not actually going to do it, but you sure look convincing. You've got the evil smile and everything.

As you raise your arm up, Karkat gets this panicked look on his face. You've never seen him like that before. He looks pretty frightened, not for himself, but for you. His teeth are barred, his mouth is agape, and his eyes are wide as dinner plates.

“Okay,” he yells, causing you to almost wipe your face anyway out of sheer surprise. “Okay! Shit, don't do that. Don't go batshit on me, I can't handle it when people in my life go batshit on me. I'll... I'll go with you to Hgrothrar.”

You clap your hands together. “You will? Yay!”

His face resumes its normal grumpy position. He growls at you, leans in a little. “Don't act all innocent. You may not have the outward appearance of a vile she-beast, but inside you are cunning and evil.”

“No way, your blood keeps that at bay, see!” you point at your cheek.

“Oh, right, of course. For-fucking-give my incorrect assumptions, I was totally and clearly wrong.”

“You are forgiven!” you say, deciding to take Karkat's sarcasm literally. “Anyway, do you know the best way to get to Hgrothrar? High trade route, right?”

“Er, no. Let me draw a map here...”

He flips the last page of Kankri's manuscript over to the blank side, then grabs his inkwell and pen. You watch him hastily scribble out the crudest map you've ever seen. He hands it to you.

You study it.

“Well, like my route?” he says, looking fondly at the map.

“Um, this is really not to scale, the fields are way bigger.” you say. “Also, you draw like how you sound.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“You know, all harsh and crunchy and stuff.”

“Crunchy? *Crunchy!?* That directly contradicts your comment about softness you decided to unjustly smear me with only moments ago!”

“It does not! It just shows your exterior is crunchy and your insides are soft. Like stale chocolate.” You pick up the map. “But, really, why take the south road there? It's shorter, I guess, but how are we going to pick up a border pass for you to get into Alternia?”

He points at the mountains. “Easy, I cross illegally.”

You gasp in semi-mock surprise. Half of you is excited by the promise of danger, while the other half is legitimately shocked. “Karkat! As a royal family member, I am morally appalled by that route!”

“Come on, it's not like we're going through the your hometown or anything, nobody's going to fucking notice.”

“You don't want to go through the capital? But Porkmor-Kahn is awesome! There's such a nice river, and a really good witches college, and a great seamstress who--”

“No. Fuck you. Once we get to the Alternian side of the city they will immediately cull me, travel pass and royal companion be damned, and leave nothing left to resurrect. We're going through the mountains.”

You suppose you can compromise. You are, after all, kind of threatening him into this. Although by the way he's acting, he sounds like he's kind of looking forward to traveling again. That's... A good thing, you think.

“Okay, fine.” you say. “We go through the mountains, but we start on the north route to get a travel pass for you from border control anyway.”

“Er...” he says. He taps the operating table irritably. “This is incredibly awkward, but I'd prefer not to go there for another reason. It's, well, it's because my ex-matesprit... lives... around there...”

Oh, you remember her. You kinda liked her. “The one that trains dragons?”

“Yes.”

You make a 'pfft' noise. “The fields are so big! The chances of running into her are so tiny as to be almost impossible!”

He facepalms and mutters, “But she can smell me...” You decide to pretend not to hear that.

“Either way,” you say. “I'm gong to make you go get a pass. We're doing this legally!”

“Fine, as long as we avoid Porkmor-Kahn.”

“Deal.” You place the map back on the table. “I'll fix our route.”

You take the pen, dip it once, and think up a little spell for an ink color change. When the words form in your head, you snap your fingers, and the tip begins to drip green.

“Talk about skewed distance, border control is way farther away from us.” he says. “And, ugh, fucking hell, Jade, could you pick a more obnoxious color? My black globesphere centers are burning with the sheer pain of the florescence.”

“That's what makes it so pretty! It's not my fault you have bad taste.”

“I have excellent taste, and it involves like, subtle shades of gray, which I realize is lost on your gaudy human concept of design.” He glances at the map. “Besides for the hideous ink choice, it's not a bad route. I think I can handle this trip, even with you. Hell, we might even make it in just one perigree if we don't stop to bulge around too much.”

“Yay! How long do you need to pack up stuff?”

“An hour is good, it's not like I have any sort of business to wrap up, shit's been desolate until you came along... as nook-clenchingly depressing as that is.”

“Okay then, I'll meet you back here in 60 minutes. Be ready!” you mock salute him, then leave his office.

As you make your way back to Rose's, it occurs to you that Karkat didn't put up much of a fight against going with you on your trip. Yeah, it was clear he wanted to travel, but was there something else behind that? Sure, he's kind of genuinely _nice_ , somewhere under those gross layers of angry personality, but he's not _nice_ nice! He's got to be after something. Is it you? Was he lying about the pity quadrant being off limits?

No, he wouldn't be lying about that. He acted differently when he had a big dumb crush on you, he was all swoony and put you on a pedestal. Does he have a different kind of crush on you now? The only one that would make any sort of sense is the hate one. And as fun as that sounds in theory... You're not into it.

Well, you'll deal with it if it ever comes up. For now, it's time to raid Rose's pantry and see how much dry food you can squirrel away before her Seer powers can catch you in the act. Probably a lot, but you're pretty sure she lets you get away with it.


	7. Roll 10 for Wilderness Survival Check

"All you're bringing is books!?"

"I've got a shit-ton of bleached wound wrappers buried at the bottom, but yeah. Yes. Pretty much."

"Why? Why would you do that?"

"I had figured I would at least try to get some fleck of entertainment out of this trip, even if it is repetitive shit I've already read through around ten billion times."

You're just... so confused. And mad at his poor survival skills. "Why not bring... um, I dunno, food along? Something actually useful!?"

"Why bother when we have Jade Harley, hunter barkbeast extraordinaire, who is just going to wantonly slaughter nut creatures for us so we can sink our teeth into fresh meat every night. I mean, it's not like we need to cook it or anything."

You think about this. "Um... I know you and I can eat raw food, but... Shouldn't we cook stuff on principal?"

Karkat raises a threatening finger towards you. "I know you know we both have terrible taste and literally would not be able to tell the difference, even if we somehow managed to make ourselves a apple-stuffed nut creature worthy of kings."

"I would-" No, no you wouldn't. Royal feasts always ended with you eating the undercooked gristle of steaks that nobody ever wanted. Thousands of cooks have tried their hand at you at some point or another, and all of them failed to give you a sense of taste. You just don't get why full, non-werwolf-y humans don't like sinking their chompers into a rubbery, slippery piece of uncooked animal! "--n't. Okay, you're right about that Karkat, but it's still not a very proactive way to live in the wilderness for a while!"

He plants his cane on the ground, narrows his eyes, and gets ready to deliver a killer comeback. "*You're* not... a proactive way to live in the wilderness."

"Um, yeah I am, I'm like, nature girl! What do you have to offer in comparison to my natural prowess?" you say it haughtily, like you're queen of the forest and Karkat's some ignorant lumberjack. You look around on his body for something to make fun of. Your eyes fall upon a long, curved thing, badly strapped to his hip by some hidden belt. "A giant scythe?"

"It's a *shotel.* Scythes are so three sweeps ago." He pats the handle of it. "You can't seriously tell me that we could have an adventure without giant weapons."

You do admit, quests have to have at least one oversized sword to be legit. But you're not going to say that to him, of course, you've got to resist on principal!

You pause before replying. Are you two going to be arguing like this the whole time? Sure... it's kind of entertaining. And it's better than him having an awful, dopey crush on you like the last time you travelled together... But two or three months of this? That might get painful.

"Hey Karkat," you say. "Are we going to be fighting for the whole journey?"

"We don't have to. It's not my fault you're a disagreeable fuck who constantly grates on my nerves."

Ooo! He's so mean! You don't even know what to say to that! Quick! Generic insult! "You fucker!"

He makes a mock gasping face. "Shit, Jade swore at me. That just makes my nubjoints quiver in shame."

"I know! My insults hit hard!"

The road starts to widen out, to free up space amidst the mid-afternoon business traffic. Might as well start going strong. You stop pulling on Halley's reigns, and he halts immediately. Good dog! Best mount. You pat his neck, grab a soft chunk of his fur, and use him as leverage to heft yourself onto his back. Halley stays perfectly still for you, allowing you to settle yourself behind his head. Halley may not be the smartest dog, but he sure is comfy!

You pat Halley's back behind you while smiling at Karkat. "C'mon, let's get going!"

He glances down at his feet, back up at you, grimaces, then whacks your calf with the blunt of his cane.

"Ow!" You immediately put your hand over your boot where he struck. "What was that for?"

"I can't just hop up there like some kind of prancing woods fairy, you inconsiderate fuck. You're going to need to lower the damn barkbeast."

"Oh," you say, realization hitting you like an eight wheeled cart. "I'm sorry, I didn't know you couldn't... um... I didn't think about that. Here." You pat Halley with both hands on his neck and he lowers with a soft 'woof.'

Karkat swings his leg over Halley's back with the aid of his cane, then situates himself behind you. He manages to distance himself just far enough away from you to be space-bubble conscious, but close enough to grab onto you if the ride gets bumpy. You pat Halley's neck again, and he stands up haunches-first.

You spur Halley into a messy trot. It's not very pretty, Halley would probably get ultra-last place at a giant dog show, but it gets the job done. It's a little bumpy, but Karkat doesn't touch you.

"I'm sorry Karkat," you say, focusing on the grey clouds hovering in the distance. "I guess... I just don't really have a handle on what's up with your leg! Would you be willing to..." You're not sure if asking this is an invasion of his privacy or not. Gosh, you suck at decorum. "... tell me about your injury?"

He replies faster than you anticipated. "I can't put weight on it."

"Oh?" He actually responded. Sweet. "Does it hurt?"

"No, the opposite. Take one false step too hard and dormant chucklevoodos will shoot up and shit all over my nervous system. Seriously, it'll fucking decimate it, absolutely no repair possible, no movement recoverable. I'll be this immobile pile of Karkat shaped flesh. I am completely fucked if I make a mistake."

"Sorry if I'm being rude, but--"

"Fucking hell Jade, I'm not made of eggshells and butterflies, stop treating me like that."

"I- Okay." He has a point. You need to stop that. "Why don't you just... rig up a leg brace or something? A weight distributor?"

"I did." he says, like a heavy door slamming shut. "I'm wearing it."

You twist, looking back at Karkat. "What? You're that sensitive?"

He glowers at you. "Yes, I'm that sensitive. I'm a big ball of feelings and dismay fluid."

"Not what I meant!" you turn back to face the horizon. Generic farm houses way too similar to one another pass on either side of you. Seriously, do they construct them that way?

"Hey Karkat?"

"What."

"If putting weight on your leg causes your nervous system to... shit itself... then how much has already turned off? I mean, you're walking on it now, kinda--"

"Not enough of it, judging by the way your barkbeast's jutting ass is painfully digging into my back. Seriously, is it going to be like this the whole time or are you going to start feeding your mount enough to metamorphasize into a superior, cushion-y orb of travel-flesh?"

"I would have to feed it more than raw rabbits! If only you had brought some food, then maybe Halley could have gained some weight and given you some extra butt cushion..." you sigh, dramatically, closing your eyes in mock sorrow. Karkat can't see that part, but it's a required element of the presentation. "I'm sure you could feed him your plentiful supply of books, though. Halley will eat anything!"

Karkat gets livid and stuttering. Apparently books aren't something to joke about. "You vile, unappreciative, porkround fucker! Your ignorance of fine art forms is no fault of this literature! Don't you dare even speak a goddamn whisper about shoving it through some beast's grubchute."

You roll your eyes. "Oh my goddess, Karkat, it was a joke."

"Shut the fuck up."

"You first."

You both manage to stay completely silent for the next six hours. You're not sure why, but it probably has something to do with the weird, mutual hatred you have for each other. Er, platonic hatred.

Either way, totally off to a good start.


	8. Good morning, my moon and stars

You sit cross-legged, needle and thread in your hands, trying to sew in a patch at the bottom of your skirt. You totally forgot to do it before you left, and you're kind of bored anyway, so you might as well start the repairs now. Although... starting this at night with only the fire to work off of is making things just a little difficult.

You've made it just to the crest of the wild-growing Fields of Krynne, where the plains begin to flatten out and the famed golden grass starts to pop up in small little patches. It's unsettled enough to lack any kind of farmhouse within a visible distance, but not quite as untraveled. The road is still large and wide, and although it's generally too dark for caravans to continue their journey, you've made your camp further off the beaten path to avoid any strangers coming to say hello. Well, you would be fine with them coming to say hello, the problem is when that hello is accompanied by a knife and a 'give me your money!'

Karkat's across from you, blurred a bit by the smoke from the campfire, reading a book. He's stretched out, leaning against his pack, wearing his pants and a really baggy white undershirt. He's angled towards the light of the fire, but you can't for the life of you tell what he's reading.

“Karkat,” you say. “What book is that?”

He sits up and swings himself around on his butt to face you. You guess he's feeling like a conversation. “Only the most blessed poetical epics known to trollkind, the words of which would be lost on human thinkpans.”

Or... maybe he just wanted to insult you. You ignore it. “I didn't think you were a poetry kind of guy.”

“Well, I am. Surprise, Karkat Vantas is into verse. Just gets my bulge all hard, causing it to detach and slither away into the nearest leatherbound tome.”

“Um... ew.” You hope he's joking. Troll junk doesn't do that, right? “And... verse? I didn't think Alternian even has the ability to rhyme.”

“Alternian poetry is based on how many loud nasal syllables you can fit into a sentence. The answer is a shit-ton.” He pauses, taps the cover of the book. “Although the type of poetry I like --you know, masterpieces-- usually use these rhymes to a more subtle effect.”

“What type of poetry--” Oh, duh. It's _Karkat_. “--Nevermind.”

“What? What!?”

“You totally read gooshy love poems, don't you?”

Karkat grips the book like he's going to strangle it. “Fuck you. Fuck you for comparing beautiful, quadrant-related art to your incomprehensible human feeling. Troll romance poetry consists of works worthy of the fucking gods, and is far deeper than anything your terrible species could shit up.”

“Yeah right.” You really don't think troll poetry could be subtle at all. It probably involves a lot of gore and comparisons to acts of torture. Trolls are like... the definition of loud and obvious.

“You doubt me? Fine. Be prepared to have your organs viscerally shat out through your hear ducts from the sheer romance you're about to be presented with.” He flips open the book towards the middle section. “We need one with simple vocabulary and not too many Alternian cultural references, since despite being part of a joint Alternian/Human royal family, you're weirdly isolated and self-absorbed.”

“Am not! They just took me out of school before all the Alternia classes so I could be a necromancer!”

Karkat makes this expression with you like he's completely done with the world. What? What kind of reaction is that? “Okay Jade, whatever. Anyway, this one's called 'Good morning, my moon and stars' and it's one of my fucking favorites. This poem not only shows shades of pity, but can also be interpreted as pale or black. It's fantastic.”

You frown. “Why couldn't it just be... all three?”

He recoils in horror. “At the same time? That's just sick and gross. Anyway...”

He looks down at the book, tilting it to spatter some of the firelight across the pages. Karkat's reading voice is grainy and waning, like a tidal wave crashing over a beach. It ends up working, not just with the poem, but for a way of presenting Alternian speech. You wonder if he used to read aloud to somebody a lot.

“ _< Good morning, my moon and stars _ >  
 _< Distance forever cradling_ >  
 _< Sleep could never take you  >_  
 _< Death can never find you_ >  
 _< I will cry -----_ (murder?) _at the gates_ >  
 _< Destroy the gods themselves_ >  
 _< To see you wake up again._ >”

He finishes, closes the book in a way he probably thinks is intense and quiet, but it ends up looking like he's really smug with himself.

“Wasn't that fucking amazing? A true divine gift penned on this mortal parchment?”

“I dunno,” you say. “It just seemed like a bunch of lame clichés to me.”

Karkat actually throws the book at you in a rage. Through the fire. He hurls it fast enough so it doesn't burst into flames, but it totally smacks you right in the chest. It doesn't really hurt, but you make a pained face anyway.

“I can't believe you just threw something at me!” you clutch the book to your chest. “I am _so_ feeding this to Halley.”

“No, you aren't!” he yells, his eyes wide and manic. “Fuck no, you aren't!”

You stand up, making a big show of brushing your skirt off. You're not actually going to do it, but he needs to learn not to throw things at you! “I'm going to do it!”

Karkat tilts forward onto his knees, raises one leg against the ground, and springboards himself into you. Through the fucking fire.

Your immediate reaction is to say “Holy shit.” Which is probably the worst first reaction you've ever had to anything, but it really doesn't matter anyway because the time your mouth opens you've been tackled to the ground. He does it by ramming his head into your stomach and dragging you down by the legs. You guess if there's one thing Karkat's good at it's leverage and momentum.

You try to hold the book out of reach, but it's futile since your back is plastered to the ground and Karkat is rapidly scrambling over you to get it. You knee him in the stomach as he's just about to grab it, and he pauses to make an 'oomph' noise. This boy has the worst constitution.

“Excuse you!” you say, taking the opportunity to clutch the book to your chest with both arms. “This is a violation of my space bubble!”

Karkat recovers, sits over you, takes both hands and pulls hard on the book. You hold strong, but it's tough. “Do you really want to do this?” he says, tugging away. “Because I really don't think we should have a full out battle on the first. Fucking. Day.”

He fakes you out with a tug, then wrenches the book out of your hands by leveraging it out towards your stomach. Wow.

He stretches up, straddling you on his knees, and raises the book to the air. “Rejoice, for the savior of all literature has triumphed over the asshole of all unlearned humans!”

“Get off me!” You prop yourself up on your elbows.

He doesn't move, instead choosing to lean into you. He raises the book against your neck like it's a dagger and he's going to cut you with it. “Admit 'Good morning, my moon and stars' is not a lame, cliché poem.”

You're tired of this. You roll your eyes and say with the air of somebody who is totally apathetic, “It's not a lame poem... but it's still pretty cliché.”

He sits up again, clearly displeased. “Fine, if you want to play it that way, I can make some compromises. No one ever said I wasn't a merciful son of a grub.” He gets off you, stands up, and then hobbles over to his side of the fire with his book. You watch him resume his position next to the fire, stretch out, and continue reading like nothing happened.

You don't even sit up. You're just... so done with Karkat. You've barely even started your journey! Maybe in the morning you'll feel better.

“I'm going to bed.” you say, rolling over to your bedroll. “Wake me up if you want me to keep watch.”

“Sleep away, princess, because unlike you superior creatures don't need rest.”

You groan, covering yourself with the blanket. If it's anything like before, Karkat will end up accidentally falling asleep two hours before dawn and forget to wake you up. It shouldn't be a problem since you're in a pretty safe area at the moment, but you're really going to have to hammer some sense into him before you get to the forested areas.

Goodnight, moon and stars.


	9. Sietch Batr

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I realized I had been using the word "sweep" sometimes when I meant to use the word "perigree." This has been retconed. Karkat and Jade predict their journey will last a _perigree_ , not a sweep!

"Oh thank goddess, I see it." says Karkat. He points at a black speck in the distance. "I'm pretty sure my ass is starting to form bruises on its bruises."

"Karkat it's only been three days, you're fine!"

"Tell that to my ass!"

"I can't tell the difference between your butt and your face, ass!"

"Jade Harley, I am going to shove you off this fucking dog!"

"Good luck getting home alone then!"

Karkat pauses. Ha. You won this round. "Whatever, fine, although I would have totally taken the opportunity if we weren't in the middle of fucking nowhere. Seriously, what kind of being decides to build a fucking castle in the middle of the plains? To stroke their own ego? To stroke their own ego somewhere where literally nothing else is around so that it won't also jack off anyone else's from the sheer thrust of their screwed up sense of self-worth?"

You do admit it is pretty weird that the border control guy decided to build his house in the straight up middle of the grasslands. You've never been here before (thank you, eternal border pass from your beloved royal family!), and you don't think you would have ever gone here if it wasn't for Karkat. It does make for a very gorgeous view, though.

The wild, golden grass of the plains flits gently in the muggy wind of a coming spring thunderstorm. Dark-blue clouds far in the distance contrast nicely with the lovely golden grass brushing against the soles of your feet as Halley continues his trot. Everything's flat and golden as can be, but the view is definitely interesting enough to keep you entertained. Are those flashes of lighting over there? Cool. 

The Sietch itself is a columned, domed behemoth of a structure, carved entirely out of obsidian. Well, it's probably not entirely obsidian, there's most likely some kind of illusion spell on it to make it look all rich and fancy to impress immigrants seeking a pass to the great Alternian empire. It's a perfectly round structure, at least two stories tall, and you can't see any windows on it. Although you could be wrong, you're still pretty far away.

The narrowed dirt path you're on becomes paved in black obsidian. You guess the Alternian empire really wanted this place to look fancy to travelers. Which, well, doesn't make a lot of sense since this place is kind of out of the way and random people are pretty unlikely to just stumble across it and be all impressed and get a border pass. Whatever, at least it provides a different texture for Halley to trot along. His lunges become smoother and slicker on the smooth pavement.

"Oh goodie, I think I see a coach," says Karkat. He points around you to the building on the horizon. You don't see anything. "I bet there's a queue. 'Hey, number 48, it's your turn to select your borderpass so you can accomplish some dumb quest. I hear you're after the mystical sword of undead curing +3, +5 if you put it in their asshole.'"

"I don't think anyone would want that sword, it sounds really inconvenient."

"Skilled hands could do wonders with it, Jade."

You snicker. "Are you skilled with putting things in butts?"

He punches you playfully in the back and says, "Fuck off, what I do with assholes is my own business."

You giggle, then try and figure out what Karkat is pointing out. There is definitely something there, but it's too far away for you to see. Maybe if you take off your glasses...

Oh, okay, you can see it now. "That's Feferi's carriage!"

"Feferi? You mean, the fucking princess of all of trollkind? The second most important being this side of Alternia?"

"Yeah, definitely hers!" 

"No shit, I'm meeting *royalty?* Hold the fucking presses and stop the long distance communication devices, Karkat Vantas is moving up the echeladder for the first time in his sad little life."

You put your glasses back on. "Karkat. Are you serious? _I'm_ royalty. You were literally my knight for like, a year!"

"Yeah, but you're like, knockoff necromancer princess who isn't even in line for the throne. You don't count."

You're offended! You totally count! "I totally count! It's not my fault my dad was a necromancer."

"Okay, whatever, I'll give you that, but you're not in line for the *Alternian* throne. Maybe you count for the human side, since like, if your piss-ass half-brother died and your feminine cousin also kicked the shit, you'd take over."

You tap your chin, a gesture which turns out to be harder than originally thought since Halley is a pretty bumpy ride. "Actually, Jake would be next in line, because he's the first cousin through my dad, who also banged my aunt? I think?"

"That's fucked up. That's fucked up and I don't even have a concept of human families."

"If you think that's fucked up, you should see my family tree tapestry!" you say, cheerfully. "It gets even more complicated when you add second-troll marriages into the mix. John's getting one of two bluebloods and I've got this gross seadweller guy lined up for me."

"One of two? Look, I really don't think John Egbert can manage a troll harem of the blue necromancer caste."

"Don't worry, one of them ran away, and he likes the other one better."

You get close enough to see the main double doors of Sietch Batr, but you want to see what Feferi's doing here first. You lead Halley off the path to approach the rear side of the carriage. It's a magically melded wooden thing that looks like it came out of a century-old fairytale. Feferi got it custom made for her 4th sweep birthday and still hasn't grown tired of it.

"Hi, Equius!" you hail the coach driver, stopping Halley in front of Feferi's carriage, avoiding the six-legged Alternian horses. "Long time no see!"

Equius, clad in the most pristine, standard issue royal uniform, salutes you from atop the drivers seat. He doesn't look very comfortable on the tiny pink wooden bench, but then again, Equius never looks comfortable. "While it is a pleasure to see you once again, mistress Jade, I would strongly prefer it if you referred to me in a format more befitting of your birthright."

"Equius?" whispers Karkat into your ear. 

"He's a weird guy, usually sticks to Feferi like glue..." you whisper back. "He's pretty loyal."

Equius points a terrifyingly muscular finger at Karkat. "I would appreciate it, however, if that indiscriminate lowblood would to submit to silence in front of his betters."

The double bird from Karkat is instantaneous. You try and cover up the gesture with your arm. "Oh, sorry Equius, he's with me. He's a... friend?"

You look back at Karkat to confirm your relationship status as 'friends.' Karkat is also confused and just shrugs at you. 

"They should have never sent you away," says Equius. "Your heart has clearly been softened to some severe extremes."

You giggle. Equius is... a nice guy? Sometimes? Whatever. "What's Feferi doing here?"

"Her business is her own." He starts sweating. Violently. Whoa, that's never good. She must be up to something lewd. "Although I believe it has something to do with procuring a social accompaniment."

"Fucking wonderful," says Karkat. "I bet she's doing some kind of espionage. Watch out, royal decree getting in the way of our business."

"I dunno, Karkat, espionage isn't really her thing." How can you make that into a fish pun? Fishpionage? Eseapionage? Gosh you suck at puns. "Anyway, let's go in and see what happens. Equius, would you mind keeping an eye on my furry friend?"

"Of course, mistress."

You have Halley lower himself to the ground in a smooth motion. The golden grass goes all the way up to your waist when you hop off, and you twirl around a bit to feel it brush against your hands. You do really like the plains, although it might get old after a while...

Karkat swings himself off and readies his cane, now used to getting on and off Halley. You both walk up to the grand entrance of Sietch Batr. The same obsidian that coats the rest of the building coats these large, slick doors, although these panels are covered in a carving that reminds you of a nervous system.

"Ominous, you think the border control is compensating for something?" says Karkat.

"Actually, I heard he's got two dicks." Rose told you that one. You're pretty sure she divined it or something, Seers are so sketchy.

"Great, I hope I never have to confirm that."

Karkat touches the doors, winces, then lifts his hand off of them. There's a white, palm-print shaped hole where he touched. Huh, seems there was an illusion spell on it, the whole thing is shitty birchwood. Guess you'll be the one opening doors and stuff in here.

Karkat backs off and lets you take the lead without a word. Is he embarrassed about the magic-cancelling thing? You'll just ignore it to make him feel better, maybe.

The large doors open soundlessly for you with a gentle push of your hand.

Inside is an entryway, a really stereotypical big entryway with a sweeping staircase, black as night. It looks like a paint job that would be in the home of a witch who takes things way too seriously. There's also a nice black rug on the ground, but you're pretty sure that one's not an illusion. It's rather empty, lit by some unsensable spell, and there's no one to be seen.

Karkat starts to mock slow-clap. "Excellent customer service. Really clear on where to go to get my fucking border pass."

"At least it's stylish?"

"Yeah, black on black on black is the shit. I fucking love black."

You have a sinking feeling that both of you have a terrible sense of design. While the black is super cool, it makes it hard to find where to go. You look around for doors or buttons to press or any sort of dungeoneering activity to do, but the whole room is completely devoid of any clues. "I guess we're supposed to go upstairs?" 

"Lead the way."

Karkat's cane echoes loudly on the "obsidian" tile as you walk up the stairs. Karkat starts to drag his hand along the wall, leaving a trail of unenchanted birchwood behind him. You think really hard about telling him to cut it out, but... it's not like they can't just cast the illusion spell again. Besides, it's really funny! You have to stop yourself from giggling.

When you reach the top, you realize the whole room is kind of... flat. Like it doesn't fit the size of the space outside. The hallway at the top of the stairs is narrow, and only contains one door. It's plain and anticlimactic, a boring black square door with a doorknob. You guess the room inside must be pretty huge to compensate for how small the entryway is. 

"Playing hide and seek in this place would suck." you say, reaching for the doorknob.

"Hide and seek? You mean, 'Seek to cull,' right?"

"Yeah sure, whatever weird troll words you want, Karkat."

You open the door.


	10. Sidequest Complete!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Important update!**
> 
>  
> 
> I'll be rapidly increasing the speed of chapter updates from now on. I want to get things done before _a-_ NaNoWriMo and _b-_ The ~33% chance Jadekat will be utterly sunk in upcoming Homestuck updates (I will be... so crushed. There will be like, a four month pause in fanfic updates if that happens.)
> 
> This means that there will be less pictures than I planned, but that's about it. My goal is a chapter every 2-3 days! Check back often if you're not a subscriber.

You expected… well, a dungeon or something. There was this whole big setup and a cool entrance and everything, you thought you were going to have a real excursion! Not… walking in on some kind of heated, half-naked minimalist chess set battle. Who wants to play chess of their own free will, anyway?

The first thing from the scene that hits you is the smell. Trolls have this weird smell, it’s kind of coppery and rusty, with a different layer of scent-combination-pheromones depending on what blood color they have. This room smells like fish oil and rubber.

Anyway, the pheromone smell is the absolute worst when trolls just had sex. Bleh. In the parlor room, too? They didn’t even like, go off to wherever the border guy’s bedroom is?? That’s just bad manners! You really hope they washed their hands.

“< _Oh, hi Jade!_ >” says Feferi, shifting into a big grin when she sees you. “What are you doing here? Who’s your frond?”

You can’t answer either of her questions because Karkat has started making noises next to you like his limb just got painfully chopped off. He also looks like someone just poured acid in his eyes and he’s trying to claw them out. Okay, while you kind of get where he’s coming from with the weirdo stank, it’s not that bad. He’s really overreacting.

The border control guy sets a chip down, smiles, and does a swaggery double-point at Karkat. “ _< What’s wrong, asswipe? Can’t take the heat? You want to be in on the next round?  >"  
_

Karkat’s volume rapidly crescendos into a mountain of yell. “< _FUCK YOU. Like I would ever even think of dipping my bulge willy-nilly into some bathrobe’d harlot. I need a candlelit dinner and some delicate as fuck rose petals, you absolute flake. >_”

“ _< I meant the next round of chess, you idiot._ >” He pauses. “< _But if you want to have a quick— >_”

“No!” Karkat screams, clutching his head. He points at the guy. “< _Fuck you!_ >” He points at Feferi, and gives a slight bow while yelling. “ _< Fuck you too, highness._ >” He points at you. “And especially, fuck you for bringing me here. I am going to march back out this door, < _scrawl swear words all over your shitty walls_ >, and go hang out with Equius because at least I know that guy won’t try to hit on me to shit-eating proportions!”

He does exactly that. You turn around to watch him tantrum his way down the stairs.

Feferi is staring at you with her mouth agape and border control guy is nudging her to continue the game. “ _< I’m sorry, Feferi!_ >” you say. You’re not sure if the border guy knows Common but you had better play it safe. “< _Did you ever meet Karkat, my old knight? He’s traveling with me again because… um, well, it’s a long story._ >”

She frowns at you. “Don’t tell me you’re bringing him as your date to Porkmor-Kahn.”

You’re very confused at this. “Um… date for… what?”

Feferi gasps in what you hope is over-exaggerated shock. “For John’s wriggling day party! It’s dolphinately going to be really rad this sweep!”

Oh yeah, that. You had actually told him you weren’t going to go this year, since you had planned on a big adventuring trip. You would go, but, well, being in a big room with lots of people who want to dance and talk and act polite with you is kind of overwhelming! You’d much prefer to show your affections by sending John super awesome gifts from afar.

“No, I’m not going to go this year!” you say. “You won’t have to worry about Karkat trashing the palace or something.”

“Lame! Jade, you need to go to more social events. I never sea you anymore!” She gestures at her chess partner. “By the way, this is Sollux. I’m actually picking him up so he can be my date!”

That’s… a hell of a long way to go just to pick up a date for a dance. You’ve got a feeling she doesn’t just like him for his personality. Maybe she likes pissing off the Condescension by going out of her way to pick up a lowblood? Maybe she’s really into the two-dick thing (totally don’t blame her on that one)? Who knows?

Sollux stares at her through his weird sunglasses. “ _< I feel like I’m supposed to say something here, but I’ve got no idea what the fuck you’re talking about._ >”

“ _< Sorry._ >” says Feferi. “< _I was just saying I would be taking you to John’s ———_ >”

Feferi has a bad habit of making fish puns in Alternian, which you have no clue how to comprehend. You can mostly pick up on what she’s saying, but you usually just deal with the problem by changing the subject.

“ _< So, um, Sollux, who’s going to give out border passes if you’re in Porkmor-Kahn?_ >”

Sollux laughs. It’s grainy and hollow, like echoing around a pipe. “ _< Who the fuck comes to get border passes way out here anyway? It’s totally pointless. I literally get paid to sit on my ass and make bizarre structural machinations.  >"  
_

Feferi frowns. “ _< Weren’t you the one who said ‘he who controls the border passes controls the universe?'  >"_

“ _< Yeah, but I’m constantly full of bullshit._ >”

These two don’t look like the bickering type, but just in case, you’re going to interrupt them before it turns into a you vs. Karkat sort of thing. “ _< Um, actually… I’m here to get one of those.  >_”

“ _< Ehehe, okay, sure. You want a convenient carrying card or do you want me to turn your eyes blue? Both work for identification purposes._ >”

“ _< The card, please. It’s actually for Karkat!_ >”

“ _< Sweet, I’ll draw two big, dripping bulges on it._ >”

Sollux waves his hands around, his eyes flashing blue and red, and a shiny square starts to materialize in front of him.

“Jade, you mean to tell me you’re crossing the border without seaing Porkmor-Kahn! You could totally go to John’s party!”

You rub the back of your head with just a little twinge of shame. “Yeah, but… I dunno, I just don’t like being around all those dignitaries and ambassadors! It’s too stuffy!”

Feferi sighs. “Fiiiiine! At least come and visit me?”

“I can do that!”

“< _Done._ >” says Sollux, handing you the pass. It’s just a small little card, with a shiny overlay to prevent counterfeiting, with “BORDER PASS: PROXY BY HOLDER” written in Alternian and Common.

“Um… _< I don’t see any bulges?  >_”

Sollux taps the edge of the card. Oh, you guess the thin squiggly yellow border is actually entirely composed of wiggly troll anatomy. Gross!

“ _< That’s rude!_ >” says Feferi, as you angle the card towards her. “ _< And way too subtle! Nobody’s going to see that._ >”

Sollux grins. “ _< And that, highness, is the beauty of it.  >_”

You say your goodbyes and promise to write a letter to Feferi at some point, then make your exit. Karkat appears to have drawn angry zig-zags all over the walls on his way out. Apparently walking into somebody’s room after they boned really pisses him off for some reason? You wonder if he's got some kind of complex.

He appears to be in heated debate with Equius about something that requires a slew of large, exaggerated gestures. They seem to be getting along, at least? One thing you’ve noticed about Karkat is that he tends to have an odd hold over people, like you can’t help but talk to him even though he’s loud and mean. Or, wait, maybe it’s just you? … Wait… What if it’s just you?

Karkat sees you before you can wallow in your horror of realizing you’re kind of fond of Karkat Vantas, and waves you over.

“What took you so long? You didn’t actually take that nooksnot up on his offer, did you?”

“No way! Troll junk always leaves me disappointed.” You say it as a joke, but Karkat looks at you like you just kicked a puppy. “Anyway, here’s your borderpass.”

You hand it to him, and he shoves it in a hidden pocket without even looking at it. Aw, you kind of wanted to see if he’d react to Sollux’s silly design.

“Alright, well, now that we accomplished the goal of that nooktrap of a detour, I say we get on our way. Equius,” he does a mock salute. “ _< Nice talking with you, hope the horse show works out and you violently shit all over the other competitors.  >_”

Equius nods respectfully. Wow, sounds like you missed a lot.

You call Halley over and have him lower himself, then you and Karkat both hop on.

“Take a good look, Karkat!” you say, spurring Halley into standing up. “This is going to be the last thing besides grass and boring shrubs we’re going to see for weeks!”

“I hate this.” says Karkat. “I hate this so much I’m going to uncontrollably pitch-pail these fields and nobody’s going to enjoy it. We’re going back to Cammor. I’m not ready for this kind of black boredom.”

You turn around to stick your tongue out at him and he lightheartedly curls his lip right back at you. Yeah, you’re definitely starting to get along with Karkat. Who would have thought?


	11. Not For a Thousand Sweeps

As he draws his line in blood down the side of your cheek one night, you notice that something’s changed about Karkat since the first time he did this. And that realization comes very suddenly and shockingly to you, since the transition from what he was doing before to what he’s doing now was really really subtle. And nothing about Karkat Vantas is subtle. You can’t believe you didn’t notice what had changed.

Now that you think about it, it really should have been obvious to you. It started with him leaving his hand on your opposite cheek as he drew, something you didn’t pay attention to because, hey, maybe he needed to keep your head steady? You don’t know.

But over the past two weeks, he’s moved that hand around to the back of your head, where it is now gently tangled in your bunched up hair. And the only reason you’ve noticed he now has your head tilted back like the cover of a terrible romance novel and has been holding you like that for the last five nights is because his thumb is hooked around the base of your ear and, goddammit, you really want him to scratch there! Jade Harley, you’re a dog at heart.

And that’s not all! His knees are literally interlocked with yours as you sit on the trunk of a dried out tree in the middle of the plains. Any closer and you’d be in the midst of some very sexy grinding. Or, well, not really that sexy, because first of all it’s Karkat and second of all he’s drawing on your face in blood to keep some eldritch terror inside of you at bay. That’s always a mood killer.

He finishes his last stroke in a professional rhythm, topping your scar off with a little accent of blood. As he wipes his finger on his qipao, other hand still resting on the back of your head, you ask him, “Karkat, why are you so close to me?”

“Huh?” he says, like, two inches away from your face. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He slides his hand out from your mass of hair, scooting away from you as he does so. It’s too dark to tell the specifics of his facial expression, but the light of the fire gives a hint. He looks kind of… offput? He stands up, clearly intending to ignore you and go mope or whatever on his bedroll. No way, you’re not going to let him get away that easy! You fold your arms and glare up at him.

“I mean it! Your anti-magic doodles have gotten really far into my space bubble!”

He’s angled towards the fire now, all his weight on one leg. You think he looks like some kind of sass master when he stands without his cane, especially when he sticks one hand on his hip like that. “It’s not my fault you’re a fidgety little freak with a tendency to babble when I’m doing delicate work!”

You roll your eyes. “I am pretty much a statue when you draw on me! I don’t twitch at all!”

“Oh, what was that, you fucking falsehood preacher? I seem to remember a different story just last eve, Miss ‘Let’s extensively talk about the art of skinning nutcreatures with words that require a lot of jaw unhingements.’”

“Hey, you were totally into that conversation too! And it’s not like I was going to burst out into grimbarkness because you messed up when you started laughing.”

“I don’t laugh.”

Okay, you weren’t 100% positive you made Karkat laugh, since he immediately launched into a coughing fit in an attempt to hide whatever enjoyment he gleaned out of that convo, but you’re about 90% sure it was at least the start of a Karkat Vantas brand chuckle. You groan at him like he’s forcing you to do some kind of chore. He turns back to continue the walk to his bedroll.

“Hey, wait!” you say. “You didn’t answer the question.”

“Fuck you, I answered it crystal clear. It was so transparent you could use that answer as your viewglobe lenses.”

“Whatever, I know it’s not the truth!”

It comes out a little harsher than you want it, and a little louder too. It sounds dead serious. Your voice bounds around the darkness of the golden plains. Karkat grimaces, then stares at his feet. Oh, oops, did you embarrass him? He looks nervous.

“I, er… Jade, actually, I’ve got something to tell you… about being that close. I would like to… uh…” He’s stuttering. Oh goddesses, he’s stuttering. “I like… um, to…”

This is an oddly familiar scene, actually. Karkat wringing his hands nervously, the slight blush on his face that you can still see in the dim light, the quietness in his normally loud voice. The flickering of the firelight against his skin is almost… romantic. Oh no. Oh NO. 

It takes all the control you have to not visibly freak out. Karkat’s got a crush on you again, doesn’t he? No, no no no! You were both doing so well, you thought! He wasn’t exhibiting any of the usual head-over-heels symptoms either. You were actually really starting to like him as a friend too, and now he has to go and develop some kind of pity crush on you _again_? This isn’t fair!

Before he can finish his probably awful confession, you interrupt him. The words come out of your mouth like bitter orange peels. “I thought you said the red quadrant was off-limits for you.”

Karkat’s eyes open to the size of dinner plates. “Uh. Excuse me?”

“Don’t you dare confess that you’ve got red feelings for me again! I’m not going to accept them this time, either.” You dig your nails into the dead tree bark underneath you.

“Holy fucking nooksauce, talk about jumping to conclusions.” He folds his arms, back to his haughty self. “I do not pity you, Jade. I’ll never pity you for as long as I live. Or even after that. For like, a thousand sweeps. I will *not* pity you from now until fucking eternity.”

Oh _shit_. Is he telling the truth? You really messed up if he is…

He keeps ranting. “I can’t fucking believe you thought that! I am so incredibly over that awful pity crush it’s lying in a pile of my own shit I buried in a ditch two sweeps ago. And the fucking processes that must have run through your thinkpan to get to that conclusion, fuck, you actually believe that I would be enough of an gaping asshole to disrespect you without allowing you to pity me in return?”

Okay, you’re kind of embarrassed and a little sorry, but you wouldn’t put it past Karkat. “Yeah, you’re kind of a butt sometimes.”

“I’m insulted, totally insulted! Fuck you, fuck you to whatever hell you end up in, you rotting bulgewaffle.”

“It’s not my fault you were making whatever you were going to say out to be some big romantic confession! Seriously!” You huff and fold your arms. Wait… “Um… what were you going to tell me anyway?”

He leans over you, slowly lowering until he’s about two inches away from your face. “You’ll never fucking know.” He curls his lip, a gesture you can barely see because he’s pretty much filling up your vision. “Close enough for you?”

You push him away, forehead first, and he gives a little shriek as he falls on his ass. You stick your tongue out at him. “At least give me a hint! What were you going to say?”

He hesitates, shifts into a cross-legged position. His eyes dart to the side. “… It was about what happened to my leg.”

Oh no! You really did mess up! You’ve been wanting to know that story for ages. Maybe you were being inconsiderate… “I’m sorry, Karkat. I guess I did jump to conclusions…”

“That’s fucking right.”

You give a guilty little smile. “Does this mean I never get to know your backstory?”

“Backstory? Hell no, this wasn’t my tragic, insurmountable backstory ripped right out of a dimestore novel. This was a… er… confession pertaining to my backstory.”

Okay, you’re just confused now. “Um… what?”

“When I said you’ll never fucking know, you’ll never fucking know!”

“Karkat, that’s not fair! You’re just being frustrating!”

“Me? I’m not being fair? Come the fuck on, Jade, we *all* have tragic backstories we don’t want revealed.”

“No way, I don’t!”

Karkat gives this grin that you’ve seen on the likes of people like Rose. The grin that says ‘I’m going to one-up you and I know it.’ “Alright, tell me how Dave turned into a squawkbeast for one in a half sweeps."

You freeze up. Your palms get cold and you have to grip the hem of your dress to avoid physically recoiling away from Karkat. You definitely don’t want to tell that story. Ever. To anyone. Telling it to Rose and your family was hard enough, but Karkat? That would kill you. But you can’t let Karkat one-up you like that! You’re going to call his bluff.

“Okay, sure, let’s swap stories. I’ll tell you how Dave turned into a bird if you tell me what happened to your leg.”

Karkat stares at you for a long time, harsh and unblinking. You stare right back. After what seems like an eternity of silence, he stands up, brushes his qipao down, and says with as much dignity as he can muster, “No.”

He doesn't say anything else, going back to his bedroll and flipping open a book before you can even think of something to continue the conversation with. Ugh, what was he going to say to you? A confession that deals with something that happened to him? What does that mean?

You have a hard time getting to sleep that night.


	12. Roll for Stats

You’re washing the dishes in a pool of rainwater you filtered with a simple spell. Karkat always wants to do this chore (”I’m the master of domesticity, don’t even question me”), but for some reason his magic immunity comes into effect whenever he tries and the water gets all dirty again. You’re kind of confused about how that one works. Scientifically, it totally doesn’t make any sense! You technically split the molecules apart at a base level through a mental channel, so Karkat’s blood must reapply a-

Your ears perk up. Something's coming!

You stand up to get a better view of the flat plains unobstructed by the longer pastures. The sun is getting low, casting a pink and orange light across the tips of the golden grass reaching up to your chest. It's still bright enough to see pretty far. A quick glance around reveals two specks off in the distance against a clear sky. They're probably carrier owls, you don't think it's anything to worry about. You wonder who's sending you something.

“Hey Karkat,” you say. “I think we’re getting mail.”

Karkat doesn’t stand up, but you hear him say from somewhere under the long grass, “You mean, *you’re* getting mail. I’m untraceable as a wigglegarbler in a sludge field.”

You’ve got no idea what that means. You wade over to him and part aside some golden strands to find him reclining against a napping Halley, polishing one of his sickles. It looks like he did all his other knives and curved swords and stuff, judging by the pile of weapons drying on the patch of grass Halley padded down for him. Oh, he cleaned up your blunderbuss too! That was nice of Karkat to do.

“Looks like you and Halley are getting along.” you say. “You look cozy.”

“I am so cozy, I am about to merge into this barkbeast and become one with his fleshy belly, morphing into a ball of fur and animal level intelligence.”

“I don’t think I’d like a Karkat-dog hybrid? You would be really loud and always bark at strangers!”

He takes a clean rag and wipes it down the length of his sickle. “Yeah, but I’d be great to have if you wanted to protect your hive. Not one unwanted motherfucker would make it across your lawn ring alive.”

The mail carriers shriek as they pass over you, dropping a package stapled to a letter right into your arms.

“Why the fuck do ridiculous magical owls deliver mail over here anyway?” asks Karkat. “The whole Earthen postal system is overly complicated and messed up.”

“At least we don’t have gross drone bugs that do it,” you say. “Alternia is way weirder!”

You look at the two items you received in the postage. The letter is addressed to you in Common, and the package is addressed to you in Alternian with ‘< _give to Karkat_ >’ written in troll-parenthesis. On closer inspection, the package does not appear to be a package at all, but a tightly bound manuscript. Well, you know who that’s from.

You hand it to Karkat while mouthing the word ‘Sorry’ and he takes it with a groan.

You turn over your letter and look at the seal. It’s got a gear on it, waxed in red. It's a letter from Dave! He never sends letters, you wonder what this is about. You break the seal, flip open the envelope, and take out the sheets of paper inside.

hey yo check it i made you guys stat sheets  
it took a long time to draw those jpeg artifacts in  
wait what are jpegs  
uh anyway here you go

You blink at them for a few seconds. “You are NOT more charismatic than me.”

“What are you talking about, I’m a fucking paragon of charisma.” Karkat says, sputtering unattractively. “Go into a random tavern and you’ll see me, wooing the patrons with my bard-like wordsmithing abilities. Also, what?”

You give him the stat sheets.

“Jade, we’re wiser than this. We are not just of slightly below-average wisdom, we are the most common sense-filled beings I’ve ever known on this failure of a world.”

“Yeah we are, I really don’t know where Dave got these from!”

"And chaotic good, really? I'm lawful neutral *at best.*"

You raise an eyebrow. "Um, no way. Dave got that one totally right."

"Fuck you."

“And I’m not a human! I’m a quarter werewolf!”

“I don’t think ‘human plus a quarter werewolf’ would have fit in that obscenely small race space.”

Karkat hands you the stat sheets and you stick them in a random pouch you’re wearing.

"What was your letter?"

Karkat shrugs. “I have no idea, I got five paragraphs in before I gave up and started patting your barkbeast on the knock noggin.”

He does it again to demonstrate. He pets Halley kind of hard, like he’s trying to beat out a dusty rug, but Halley seems to enjoy it? Your dog whines and folds his ears back so Karkat can pat him more. Okay then.

“Anything interesting in those five paragraphs?”

“Something about how Kankri’s ‘feeling separate from this world,’ you know, personal ephemeral junk I really don’t give a shit about when phrased so terribly. He’s been sending me a constant feed of this stuff for sweeps.” Karkat holds up the manuscript and thwaps it with the blunt of his hand. “I mean, seriously, two hundred pages of dry existentialism in outdated Alternian. Do I really need to read any of that? Do I really need to lay my viewglobes on pages littered with how my broodmate can’t keep his soul in his mortal body and needs help?”

You shrug. “Yeah, sounds boring. I say we put the pages to good use by using them as tinder!”

“Hell yeah. This shit is going to help us produce the best roasted nutsquirrel meat we’ve had all trip, I can feel it in my bloodpusher.”

The meat turns out to be pretty good, actually. You’re glad Kankri’s letter is useful for something.


	13. Mortal Combat

“-and that’s how I managed to fall through three storefronts like an absolute fucksnot.”

You’re trying to listen to Karkat, you really are, but you absolutely cannot for the life of you stay focused! You feel antsy, on edge, and even spurring Halley into a really fast trot doesn’t make you feel any better! The plains fly by in a blur that you should feel excited about, but it’s just making you ANGRY.

“Karkat,” you say. Your voice is harsh, you didn’t mean to make it sound like that. “I need to stop. I need a break from riding.”

“Are you okay?” says Karkat, letting go of your waist. “You sound kind of-”

You slow down Halley as fast as your dog is willing, then hop off without looking at Karkat. You land square in the fields, the grass only coming up to your waist. Ugh. You feel like a MESS! You feel AWFUL. You feel like PACING. You feel like PUNCHING-

“Jade?”

You whip your head around and glare at him, as he swings around to sit sidesaddle on Halley. “What!?”

Karkat’s face draws back and his mouth drops open. “Holy shit, you’re gray. Holy actual flaming shit you are turning gray before my very lookspheres. You’re about halfway into the terror zone of evil Harley and I am not ready for that leap.”

You blink a few times. Oh, that’s why you feel all angry. “Really? I'm getting grimbark? How? Isn’t your blood still on me?”

He dismounts, not bothering to wait until Halley lowers, landing on one foot like someone trying to balance on a tightrope. “Yeah, still on. My masterpieces won’t be rubbed off just from some meek prairie winds.”

Oh no, this is REALLY BAD! Or, on the other hand, this could be REALLY GOOD if you just move your hand up and rub off some of that bloo- No! Stop, Jade! That’s the curse talking!

You grab Karkat by the collar and pull him to your face. “How do I fix this!!!” you yell, completely rationally.

“Lord on fucking high, calm down! I think the first wriggler step towards getting your shit sorted out is to calm down so you don’t snap and rip my bloodpusher out with your teeth!”

“I can’t calm down!” you say. You let go of his collar, then step out further into the field, totally frustrated. “I feel awful and angry and stressed out!”

“Well, we have to relieve all that shit somehow. What do you want me to do?”

“I don’t know! All I want to do is punch something and yell a lot! I don’t know how to-”

Wait a sec. You turn on your heel. You give a genuine, evil grin from the very pit of your badass cursed self.

“Karkat, can I fight you?”

He looks at you like you just suggested you both go skinny dipping in acid. “What? No! I can’t fight a friend! I have bad experiences with fighting friends and do not care to relive them!”

You give him your ‘nice face,’ the one that Mom taught you to use when trying to get what you want from seedy nobles. You’ve never used it because you’re not a dick. Until now. “Please, Karkat! Please! I proooooommmiiissee it’ll calm me down!”

Karkat clutches his hair like he’s going to rip it all out in one smooth motion. “You drive me *up the fucking wall,* Jade. I mean this.”

And two minutes later, you’re staring Karkat down for a fist fight battle for the ages.

You’ve skimped down to just your black dress, and Karkat shirked off all his armor as well. If you’re going to do this right, you’ve got to have FLESH ON FLESH, dammit! You wanna feel your fist make contact with his stupid face!!! Although he sure doesn't look ready to get punched so hard as to see the curvature of the world....

He’s not even standing in the right position! He’s just kind of swaying back and forth, looking at the ground. Man, he’s so going to lose. If your cousin taught you anything, a good round of fisticuffs relies on a bouncy and tight pose before the battle begins!

“Are you positive you don’t want to start at, I dunno, a range that we can be evenly matched in? You know, since your entire fighting style is based on a fucking gun?” says Karkat. He looks really unsure. UNCERTAINTY WILL KILL YOU HERE. “I promise for once this actually isn’t an insult, but while you may have wrestled with growlbeasts here and there, I’ve had literal sweeps of hardcore close quarters combat practice. I’ve done fucking *shadowboxing,* for the love of shit. I can murder you from here in six different ways if you suddenly become incompetent and fail to come up with a creative defense.”

You raise an eyebrow. “You really did shadowboxing? I bet you cried the whole time.”

“The state of my anguish bladder is none of your business.”

You let your down your guard a bit. “Won’t it be fair if you aren’t using your cane? I mean, you can’t really move from that spot… not quickly, anyway.”

“Doesn’t fucking matter. You’re inexperienced with your knuckle clenchers and I’m a god of combat. I'd really prefer it if you don't exclusively use your fists.”

You groan. Using your necromancy against Karkat just won’t be the same as punching him in the face! Curse your grimbarkness and its desire for visceral combat. “Ugh, fine, I’ll use my powers or something. I just want to be evenly matched with you!” 

Karkat looks immensely relieved. You ignore him to reach out and find any big dead things in the area you can use against him. You guess you can always use the dead earth but, well, might as well see what’s down there anyway. You close your eyes…

And the silver, humming glow of hundreds of skeletons buried underneath the ground rise up to greet you.

Whoa, no shit. That's... incredibly random. Was there a battle here or something? They all feel old, old as balls, and they’re way under there. Most of them are fairly intact, minus muscle and hair and stuff, so it would be really easy to reach out and take control of a bunch of them, then use them to attack Karkat as a huge hivemind of undead! That sounds like a whole lot of fun, actually.

“Holy shit,” you say. “There’s like, a whole dead army underneath us! How would you like to fight an undead army, Karkat?”

“I’d like it a whole lot, and by like, I mean, ‘hell no, what the fuck, why is there an army buried here.’”

“Um, not sure… But I think I might—” You were going to finish that sentence with ‘go ahead and possess them all anyway in order to DESTROY YOU.’ But, uh, maybe you should not do that. Maybe you should tone it down a little. “—not use my powers.”

Karkat tilts his head. “Why not?”

“I feel like, er…” you clench your fists. Why is this so hard to say? Your curse is making it hard to prevent yourself from gaining more power! “I’d lose control if I used my necromancy with a potential to have an undead army! Especially if I’m grimbark.”

Karkat opens his mouth, ready to yell at you. Oh no, he’s going to debate you, isn’t he? In your current state, you might not be able to resist the peer pressure of gaining more power and abusing your necromancy! But to your surprise, he hesitates, closes his mouth, and just nods. “Fine, whatever. Are we back to aggrieving with fists?”

You perk back up at the mention of fists. It’s time to PUNCH SOMETHING! You raise your arms back into a fighting stance. “Hell yeah!” 

“And… you’re sure this will help? I’m only doing this because I want you to calm the fuck down.”

Ugh, you’re getting impatient! You wish Karkat would stop asking dumb questions. “Yes! Gosh! Get ready!”

He doesn’t even look prepared. Whatever! You’re going to rush him anyway, who even cares.

You crock back your elbow, bend your knees, and lunge. You go for a straight up punch, knuckles first, because you don’t mess around. Right for his cheek! You do it exactly like you used to do when a situation got tight and you had to punch out some bears or something, so you don’t expect it to…

… Miss completely. What?

Okay, you’re not sure what happened, he did some kind of forearm thing and deflected you like it was nothing. Like, you didn’t even feel any impact at all against his wrist as he turned your punch over his shoulder. Your hand ends up whooshing through empty air as your arm gently grazes the side of his head. Holy shit.

Karkat doesn’t go for a counter or anything, even though you’re left wide open. You back up a bit.

“It’s not going to work if you don’t fight back!”

“I don’t want to hurt- you know, fuck it, fine. Fine, I’ll actually put in some effort." He takes a deep, shivering breath, then says mostly to himself, "I'm doing this to help. Let’s fucking rumble.”

His guilty stance shifts as he leans back on his good leg, his other out in front like he’s going to step on it to take a leap. He holds his hands out in front of him, the heels of his palms facing you. The stance looks relaxed… but you see his hands shaking.

Wait, hold on for a second, Jade, why is he shaking? You think really hard about stopping, but you feel a cold power well up strong inside you and overcome that urge. Ooo, hello evil curse! Who cares about Karkat anyway, it’s PUNCH TIME.

You try something more sneaky this time. You fake a punch to the side of his face on the right, as you wind up with your left to sock him in the stomach. When you start the lunge, this plan works incredibly well, your right knuckles lining up with his cheek as you start to shift your momentum… but then Karkat begins to move.

You manage to catch it this time, but not fast enough to do anything about it. You realize --as he cradles your left fist and rebounds your motion, swinging your arm out to the side-- that you did a technique that he’s got a routine for. His actions are too precise, too utterly effective, to be anything other than a prepared defense. Whatever he's doing must have been trained into him from the very beginning of his warrior career. As your left arm is flung out, exposing you to attack, he automatically hits you in the stomach. Hard.

Oh fuck that hurts. It wasn’t even a punch, it was the heel of his hand. You crumple to your knees, clutching your stomach, trying desperately to get the breath knocked out of you back inside your lungs. It’s not the worst hit you’ve ever taken, you’ll probably be good in a few minutes, but shit does it sting. You shift onto your butt in an effort to recover faster. It doesn't really help.

“Shit, Jade, shit, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to do that. Oh my god, I fucked up. I fucked up so bad. I can’t do this, I can’t fight with you, I shouldn’t have even considered the mere fucking notion—”

Okay, deep breath in, deep breath out. You can do this. Patiently getting air back. The acidic feeling is going away slowly but surely. Karkat slumps to his knees in front of you.

Haha, he looks so tragically upset over a little punch that you literally asked for. You wonder if you’d be mad at him if you weren’t half-evil and power hungry at the moment. Eh, probably not. 

His eyes are already watering with tears of regret. Wow.

“Karkat,” you huff. “It’s fine. I didn’t think I’d be… that easy to defeat though…”

“Literally any other versus battle minus a weaponless duel or sword fight I can guarantee I’d say the same fucking thing to you.” He cringes, then slides a hand behind your head, slipping it through your hair. He angles your head so you’re facing him straight on. Um, what? That was randomly romantic. You’re so confused you don’t do anything about it.

“Jade, I really shouldn’t have done that. I fucked up. I shouldn’t even have fought you in the first place. I’ve got another idea on how to temporarily reverse your curse. And, you’re going to have to deal with me being an embarrassing shithole of a troll, because I haven’t done this for a few sweeps now and I might be so awful at it even your pathetic human thinkpan will be able to comprehend how much of a mishap it will be. Just… tell me if you don’t like it, okay?”

You have absolutely no idea what’s going on, but at least you feel better enough to breathe normally again. “Um… okay?”

Karkat actually starts to blush. Like, so red he could be mistaken for a rose bush. That is how flushed this boy gets. He squints his eyes shut tight and winces, then raises his hand like he’s going to slap your cheek. He gently brings it down on your face, and it makes a gentle ‘pap’ noise.

You wait a few seconds as Karkat leaves his hand there, and absolutely nothing happens. You raise an eyebrow. “What?”

Karkat blinks his eyes open, then bares his teeth. “Fuck, okay, I am clearly so out of practice, I really need a-”

He’s interrupted by a loud, echoing screech that booms throughout the plains. That sounds an awful lot like a dragon! Good thing you’re hunkered down in the grass, you don’t have your blunderbuss near you. Although you would love to SHOOT SOMETHING UP-

“Oh no,” says Karkat, like he’s viewing his own tomb. “She’s here.”

“Who? Who’s here?”

Karkat gets manic, grabbing your shoulders and opening his eyes so wide you can see every vein against the yellows. “I said we shouldn’t go this way, didn’t I? She can smell me, she can fucking-”

Something big and large lands outside of the range of your vision, and you can bet that thing is a dragon. And whoever its rider is... maybe Karkat's ex? You think he mentioned she lived out here a few weeks ago when you were planning your journey. You wonder why he’s so panicked, she probably just wants to have a nice chat. Or maybe a BATTLE! You're totally down for that option, you're still in half-grimbark mode.

You stand up while Karkat stays hunkered down, and take a good look at Terezi Pyrope, the dragon trainer.


	14. Actually Mortal Combat

“< _I didn’t think I’d be interrupting a little moment_.  >” she says. She rubs her dragon’s snout. “< _My apologies! It’s good to see Karkat’s over it_.  >”  
  
“< _Over what_?  >” you say. Over Terezi? Over something else? Now you’re just curious. You spin around to where Karkat is still hiding in the grass. “Karkat, over what?”  
  
 “It’s nothing! Nobody! Pay no attention to the troll behind the prairie growths.”  
  
“< _Is that any way to greet an old flush? Come up and say hi, Karkat! It’s been so long since we’ve last had a chat!_ >”  
  
He groans, and you hear him smack his hands against the ground. He stands up, as regally as he can muster, but he just ends up looking overly tense. “< _And it was so nice without your screeching bird voice plaguing my ears, too. Hi Terezi_.  >”  
  
And then Terezi lapses into an example of the thing you hate the most about Alternian: a regional dialect.  
  
“< _Karkat! —————— miss ———— ——— ———— when we —— and —— — —————._ >”  
  
“< _Fucking ———— fuck —— — ——— and fuck ——— shit ———— fucking ————._ >”  
  
Ugh! You are standing RIGHT HERE, why can’t they just speak in plain Alternian? What’s the point of all these dumb dialects!?  
  
“< _Pity is —— ———— ———— — ————— not to —— !_ >”  
  
“< _You absolute ——————._ >”  
  
Did they grow up together or something? You never hear anything but modern standard Alternian being spoken anymore! This just makes you ANGRY!  
  
“< _I wouldn’t —— ———————— ———— and ———— —— ——————._ >”  
  
“< ———————————— ————— ———————————— ——— ——— ————————. >”  
  
You can’t take it anymore! You clench your fists and scream, “What the FUCK are you talking about!?”  
  
“< _Oh, right_ , >” says Karkat in normal Alternian, completely calm. “< _Terezi, you’ve met Jade. She is currently under a curse that makes her balls-to-the-wall venomous and rage-filled. That’s why she’s gray and screaming_.  >”  
  
Terezi grins. “< _So… she’s like you, now?_ >"  
  
Karkat makes some kind of gesture at her that you think might be a rude thing? You just don’t know all these dumb cultural Alternianisms! Ugh!  
  
“< _I am not anything like Karkat! He is just helping me keep the curse at bay!_ >”  
  
Terezi looks at Karkat, then at you, then back at Karkat. “< _Helping by ——— ——— —————, hmm? Wow, you do have a type, don’t you?_ >”  
  
“< _I don’t have a type, you ———— fucking ———— ———. I was helping her by trying to *fight* the curse out of her._ >”  
  
“< _And I suppose you didn’t succeed at that! From what I remember, Jade’s far too lethal for you to play with in earnest. I, on the other hand…_ >” Terezi’s teeth line up in a way that makes you shiver. “< _… am a very good match for a powerful earth witch!_ >”  
  
Awesome! She just offered to battle you! You’re so going to take her up on that offer. You open your mouth to reply, but you’re interrupted by a tug on your sleeve. What is it now?  
  
“Jade, not a good idea, didn’t I literally just hear you utter the words ‘hey, yeah, not going to use my easily overloaded necromancy, due to random as fuck skeleton army buried under the fucking ground!?’”  
  
You shrug him off. “I’m fine! I’ll be fine if I just make sure to use the dead earth and not the bones.”  
  
“This is awful. You’re awful and evil.”  
  
“< _What are you two talking about?_ >”  
  
Karkat manages to cover for you before you can think of an answer. “< _I was cautioning her against disturbing the horrible and definitely terrifying army of skeletons that happen to be lying under our very feet. But yeah, sure, you ladies go ahead, dig up ancient dead people without any thought about any kind of curse you might unleash._ >”  
  
“< _It’s okay!_ >” says Terezi. “< _Those are just leftovers from the Conflict of the Lance, where some goons tried to kill all the dragons that lived here. They all got burnt to a crisp, of course. There are no curses of any sort placed on these fields._ >”  
  
“Cool,” you say, side-eying Karkat. “< _Let’s do this, Terezi!_ >”  
  
She claps her hands together, grinning like she’s going to beat you. Yeah right. “< _I’ve been itching for a good battle for a while now. I’ve hope you’ve made peace with death!_ >”  
  
“More than you know.” you say. Karkat facepalms. Hey, it wasn’t that bad a line! You thought it was pretty cool.  
  
“< _Well, you two have fun killing each other_ , > I’m going to go hang out with your barkbeast because at least I know he’s not going to snap and become a punch-happy murder mongerer.” Karkat thumbs over his shoulder to where Halley is wandering in the plains. His voice gets quieter. “< _And… don’t actually kill each other._ > I don’t know what I’d do.”  
  
“< _Blah blah_ , >” says Terezi. Her great, white dragon ducks its head down and she loops an arm around its neck. “< _Let’s get going! I hope your earth abilities will be able to reach the flight trajectory of Pyralsprite, otherwise this won’t even be a fair competition._ >”  
  
“< _Oh, don’t worry about it, they will!_ >” you say. You’re pumped up! Finally, a real fight! You turn around to make sure Karkat has safely made it to Halley, although the grimbark side of you wonders why you even bothered to check. He’s there, leaning against a Halley munching on some grass. Oh, Halley, don’t do that! That’s bad for his digestive system and he knows it!  
  
Terezi mounts her dragon, swinging up like she weighs as much as a sack of flour. You suppose that she’s got an agility advantage up against you! Grrr, you’ll just have to take her out before she gets close. Although you are without your blunderbuss, since it’s still with Karkat and Halley… Whatever, your grimbark rage and necromancy will more than make up for it!  
  
Terezi takes to the air, her dragon’s wings beating against the ground, sending the grass around you crashing into your waist like a great wave. The wind blows your hair back and makes your blood pump. You are so going to WIN THIS SHIT. It’s not even FUNNY how much you’re going to PUNCH the daylights out of Terezi Pyrope! Er, you mean, punch her with giant streams of earth? Yeah, that. Either way, fuck yeah! Battle time!  
  
You close your eyes, to test out the waters. You can still feel the whir of air as Terezi’s dragon thrusts upwards, so you’ve got plenty of time to get a good grasp of your surroundings. You listen to the hum of hundreds of skeletons, just waiting for you, and try desperately to ignore it. There are plenty of rocks and dirt particles and corpses of little scavenger animals for you to use instead. And that stuff won’t require you to bargain as much of your soul away.  
  
You spread out your hands, reach out into the dead earth, sense every pulsing potential of POWER that this could give you. You can feel that cold curse inside of you just roiling in pleasant undulations with how close the fight is. You’re so ready. You’ve never been more ready for anything in your life! You open your eyes.  
  
Terezi and her dragon are high above you, hovering, waiting for you to take the first move. You always got the impression she was more of a calculation-based kind of person. Well, you’re feeling like action right now, so you’ll take her bait.  
  
You call out to a patch of earth in front of you, getting a feel for what lies under it and ignoring the living parts. You make a claw shape with your hand, feel the weight of the deathforce in your palm, and pull up. You feel the force as it transfers through your muscles, uprooting the grass and bellowing up to where Terezi hovers.  
  
Your earth is slow, compared to the dragon. She swoops and dives around the sharp pillar you raised to strike her, and blows a fiery breath towards you.  
  
You quickly call out to the earth under you, raising a shield with a big swooping motion and blocking the flames. You still feel the heat of it against your cheeks, despite the thick layer of dirt pressing almost up to your nose. She’s clearly not going to hold back! So you WON’T HOLD BACK EITHER!  
  
You drop the earth in front of you, then spin to where Terezi and her dragon are completing their arc around you. The zooming white against the sky provides an excellent contrast! What an easy target! This time, you raise both your hands, and call forth two crisscrossing pillars from the earth to impale her from both sides!  
  
She just barely dodges, unfortunately. Her dragon does a nosedive under your two pillars, just grazing the tips of the leftover grass not torn up from your attacks. The super tiny, kinder part of you gives you a little pang in your chest. Should you really be going at her this heavy? You do have a fancy resurrection spell to bring her back right away, but its not a very nice to-  
  
WHATEVER! This is just TOO FUCKING FUN to stop!!! You feel so good, you’re high on power and your own curse! Ha ha, things are looking up for evil Jade Harley!  
  
You know what would feel even more delicious!? Testing out your necromancy FOR REAL! You’ve had enough of this earth bullshit, you’re going for the real stuff, the skeletons!!  
  
That little “good” part of you that would object to this turn of events is so small now. Fighting for real has certainly made you rather power hungry, huh? You’ve really got no opposition to GAINING MORE POWER!!! Ha ha, take that, normal self, it’s grimbark time!  
  
Terezi’s dragon careens over your head, still going too fast from having to dodge your double pillars to stage another attack. You’ve got plenty of space to summon before it will come around again. Time to make some fucking UNDEAD!  
  
You dip under the sparse grass that remains around you, placing your hands against the ground. You channel yourself out and under, spreading each bit of your soul to the dead that scream to you. You flood yourself through the bones and rotted muscle of a whole army, adrenaline fueling every pump of your heart. You’re stretched out, filled to the limit with dried up memories and crispy bones, and it feels FUCKING ORGASMIC.

You provide their muscles where they lack them, their movement, their controls. You partition each section of your soul away to every one you can, gleaning every speck of power from the available bodies. You can feel all of them, moving as one, and you’re ready to take control.

And with one retching, great pull, you rip them all from the ground.  
  
Your muscles twinge in all directions, feeling all of your little toys claw their way out of their tombs. You feel the dirt from hundreds of fingertips, feel it press against your faces, and feel the hot light of the sun as you reach fresh air after all these long years. You are MANY, you are FANTASTIC.  
  
“What in the actual fuck!?” you hear from somewhere behind your original body.

"< _You're a necromancer? But you're so nice!_ >"  you hear from somewhere above your horde.  
  
You can’t see anymore, but you can feel. You can feel the grass sway against your bones, you can feel the rough earth against your joints, you can feel the air press between the empty sockets of your skulls. And with that information overloading your thousands of senses, you can find Terezi.  
  
You feel the dragon whoosh over a fraction of your shambling mass, a little slower than before. Perhaps she’s confused at your undead army filling the field under her? GOOD. To drag her down, all you have to do is pull with a little force! And get a good calculation of where she’s going to end up. Hmm, yeah, right about… THERE.  
  
You pile yourself on top of one another, grabbing and pulling and gripping, creating a moving, undead pyramid that reaches the dragon’s height trajectory. You feel it try to pause, try to beat its great wings against the air to back itself up, but it’s far too late. You reach out with your many hands and grab. Grab and drag, right down to the ground.  
  
You feel the thud of the beast as you start to swarm, crawling over the dragon with your bones and festering muscles-  
  
Sharp pain shoots you back into your body.  
  
Well, not completely back into your body, you’ve still got control of a few skeletons, but it’s enough to cause you to yell out a very serious “ouch!” and fall flat on your face. The pain is coming from your lower back, something you can pinpoint at the base of your spine. With great effort, you draw yourself together, super-surprise jump-spin around, and PUNCH KARKAT VANTAS IN THE FACE. Your fist makes a nice ‘doof’ sound as it collides with an off-guard Karkat standing right behind you.  
  
Oh GOD that felt good.  
  
Well, okay, it’s not as hard as you would have liked since Karkat did some weird momentum absorbing thing by ducking his head along with your punch, but your knuckles made contact with his skin and that’s what matters. He’s holding his cane like a bat, you guess he hit you with it. First order of business— disarm THE FUCK out of Karkat. You do not want to have a terrible rehash of just fifteen minutes ago! Especially now that you’re evil and prepared for this shit.  
  
You call out to the dead wood and keratin in his cane (keratin? That’s hells random) and beckon it forward, as you use your other hand to draw earth up and between the two of you. Karkat notices the earth shifting first, and tries to use his cane to pivot backwards to dodge. Your call takes effect before he can manage the full counter, and his cane flies right into your hand! Sweet deal.  
  
Karkat manages to stumble out of the way of your pillar of earth, cursing up a storm. You hold the cane over your head like a battle trophy, while transforming the pillar into a wave of crushing dirt.  
  
“Eat shit and die, Karkat!” you say, pushing your wave forward.  
  
Instead of facing it head on like the stubborn asshole you’ve come to expect, he turns his back to the wave of dead earth you heft towards him. Instead of standing his ground, he lets himself get pushed along by it. You’ve got to give him credit, he is really crafty. Although now he is stuck rather far away from you without any way to get to you quickly. He flicks you off from thirty feet away while screaming something incoherent. You drop his cane on the ground, your duty done.  
  
Your ears twitch, and you turn around just in time to see a beaten-up Terezi Pyrope attempting to place some kind of spell on you. She’s got the mark half-drawn in the air and everything! Well, she’s no match against you with her dragon taken out of the picture.  
  
You tell the ground to buckle under her, and it does. She stumbles, the spell evaporating, and you leverage her into the air by using the earth as a giant spring. It’s kind of silly, and she also looks kind of silly flying through the air like that, but hey, YOU’RE TOTALLY KICKING THEIR ASSES. DAMN.  
  
She arcs over you, screaming the whole way, and manages to align just-so as to barrel into Karkat. Aw yes, a strike on troll bowling! He kind-of catches her, swinging an arm out to grab her waist so she doesn’t completely hit the dirt, but he can’t fully take her on without a rock solid stance. Haha, it’s like kicking puppies. This is going to be so easy!  
  
“You know, Jade,” says Karkat, helping Terezi up. “I could have sworn to every fucking god there is that you said fighting would help you get better, not send you driving straight up the asshole of evil-town.”  
  
“Oh, come on!” you say, sending your soul back out to the undead who aren’t necessary to keep Terezi’s dragon pinned down. You don’t send enough to lose sight of yourself this time, since you still need to give a villainous monologue! “I feel better than ever! You should be thankful you’ve helped me unlock my full potential!”  
  
You start to march them towards you. You might as well make Karkat and Terezi’s demise as radical as possible by killing them with about fifty skeletons! They should really be FUCKING THANKFUL for how well you’re treating them!  
  
You’re grimbark and loving it, baby!

  
“< _Terezi_ , >” says Karkat, drawing his sickle. “< _I think we’re fucked_.  >”

“< _Oh, definitely_.  >” says Terezi.


	15. Really, Actually Mortal Combat

Terezi, ever the prepared one, raises a shield before your undead horde gets to them. She holds it up like she’s bracing herself against a door that someone’s trying to kick open. Well, okay, that’s pretty smart, you guess, but it’s not going to take long before your shambling army will overtake those sons of bitches! And they’re pretty much sitting ducks right there.  
  
You cast your army against Terezi’s blue shield, making them claw against it, making them dig their knuckles hard into that magical field. Their bones and ancient armor are slowly disintegrating against it due to how much force you’re exherting, but you’re patient! Your undead will break through eventually.  
  
Karkat’s got his sickle prepared, at the ready to defend Terezi when her shield fails. Aw, that’s cute! You’ll make sure to MURDER HIM FIRST. Terezi grunts with the sheer amount of effort she’s pumping into her spell.  
  
“< _Karkat, remember that thing ———— ————— ———— ———,_ >” Terezi has to yell over the noise of creaking bones. “< - _when we wanted more bounce when ——— ——— ——————?_ >”  
  
“< _Terezi, now is not the time to have ——————. Wait, I see, ———— ————— ————— ————_.  >”  
  
Terezi loses focus, causing the shield to weaken. You’re close! You’re so close. You pump up your effort to 110%. “< _———— ———— ———— than usual? ——— ———— back?_ >”  
  
“< _Yes, fuck-_ >” says Karkat, dodging a fist of a skeleton attempting to punch him through a hole worn in the blue force field. Damn. “< _-Do it now!_ >”  
  
Terezi drops her shield to draw a character for ‘protection’ in the air between her and Karkat. Um, did she forget he’s immune to magic? Ha ha, those silly trolls!  
  
You reach out as a crowd towards Terezi, draw your soul through their dry bones, and have them reach and grab at Terezi’s body just as she finishes the character. She tries to kick them away as she pushes the floating symbol into Karkat’s back, but it’s too late, you’re already biting and gnashing and-  
  
You abandon all commands because Karkat Vantas is suddenly launched towards you at a rapid rate. Holy. Shit.  
  
Things slow down. Adrenaline pumps through your veins, speeding up your thought processes and making time heavier.  
  
Your brain manages to flash through what just happened. If Karkat is immune to magic, and Terezi put a protection spell on him, the force from the spell has to go somewhere, right? And that somewhere is out and away from him! It’s simple physics!  
  
He smashes through the wall of skeletons like it’s nothing, wielding his sickle handle-first and headed straight into you, flying over the earth at a rapid rate. Hmm, he’s using the handle? Oh, silly Karkat, doesn’t he know that lethal force is the only way to bring you down? Probably, but he’s too softhearted to even think about doing that!  
  
But you’re not.  
  
You call out to the handle of the sickle, your movements slowed only by the burden of time, and the wrappings and wood light up in sweet response. As Karkat rapidly rushes into you, you give his weapon a big mental tug.  
  
Gravity and momentum work wonders for you, and the sickle comes sliding out of his hand. He reflexively lets go before the blade can wound his palm, and you ask the sickle to spin to point at him. He can’t stop himself from continuing to rocket towards you, and you revel in that nanosecond of fear that lights up his eyes when he realizes he’s going to be impaled. It’s good to be evil, baby.  
  
But it disappears just as quickly, replaced by something harsher. Determination? Well, hope you’re determined to die, Karkat. Queue evil laugh.  
  
It happens in the blink of an eye. Karkat launches through your army of skeletons, you spin the sickle around, and he careens into it with a wet crack of hard troll skin and muscle. Things return to normal speed with Karkat’s scream right in your ear. Ouch, doesn’t he know that hurts your sensitive doggie ears?  
  
You catch him as he finishes his “attack,” for some reason. You take on his full weight and feel him go slack against your torso. The handle of the sickle digs into your stomach. Wow, you really got it embedded in him, way to go Jade.  
  
Wait, why didn’t you just dodge and let him hit the dirt behind you? Yuck, now he’s bleeding all over your skirts.  
  
You hear Terezi scream from far away. She starts to run towards you, but stops in her tracks when Karkat yells out “< _Wait._ >”  
  
You’re surprised he can still talk. You feel Karkat shift to raise his hand between you and him. He touches the handle of the sickle, and you hear a wet shlick as he wipes some of his blood off of it. What is he doing, trying to grab it? He’s way too weak to do that.  
  
His shoulder shifts, and before you notice, his arm is around your own and his palm is headed rapidly towards your cheek.  
  
He paps your scar gently, slides his hand down your cheek, and whispers “Shoosh.”  
  
Oh? He just put more blood on your scar? Well, that’s too bad, because you’re way too into being evil now! Nothing’s going to draw you away from this amazing power!  
  
You hold out your arms and let him go slack against them so you can see his face. “You know it’s going to take more than a bit of blood to make me the inferior Jade again!”  
  
His eyes sleepily roll towards you, and he nods just slightly. “I know.”  
  
It startles you with how soft he says it. He has a plan, you just know it, but you can’t bring yourself to just throw him down to the ground… Why not? C’mon Jade, get it together…  
  
He uses the knuckle of his pointer finger to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear. He’s soft, his knuckles warm with the heat of his last hundred heartbeats. Your hair gently settles behind the fur of your ear, and he glides his fingers down the back of it. You feel goosebumps pop up on your arms. “Shhh, Jade.”  
  
He cups the back of your head, gently bringing it forward so he can touch your face with his other hand. He runs the tips of his fingers across the cheek lacking a scar. The nails on his hand gently drag across your skin, leaving the impression of fading sparks from a cozy fire. You feel yourself sink to your knees. Your head is woozy, your vision unclear. What’s happening? You… don’t like this, right? You should just… punch… him… and be done with it, right?  
  
Karkat ends up in your lap, and he curls into you, his head resting on your shoulder. His cheek presses against yours, and you feel warmth rush through you from the head down. Your vision gets less crimson, less filled with the blood and anger that you didn’t notice were present. “Shhhh,” he murmurs into your ear. “It’s okay Jade, you’re alright now. Shhh.”  
  
He paps your cheek again, over your scar. “Shoosh.”  Your head buzzes with a calm sort of pressure and you bite your lip. Karkat closes his eyes and takes a deep, watery breath.  
  
The hand cradling the back of your head goes slack, and his arms drop with the heavy demands of gravity. He falls against your shoulder, like petals off a flower.  
  
“Kar… kat?” you say. “Karkat… are you…?”  
  
Oh no.  
  
What did you do.  
  
What did you do?  
  
This is all your fault! Everything! You fucked up, you fucked up so bad and there’s absolutely no way you’re ever, ever, ever going to make up for this. Your hands start to tremble around his shoulders, you pull him out a little so you can see his face, so you can probably see how angry and upset he is, for good reason!  
  
He actually… looks rather peaceful. He’s looking up at you patiently, like he’s just waiting for you to say something. Oh my gosh, he’s so mad he’s snapped, hasn’t he? He’s just done a total reacharound into super angryville and he’s not ever coming back. You fucked up!  
  
You come to the dim realization that you’re rambling. “-Karkat, Karkat, I’m so- I- Hold on, I’ll get you bandaged, I can fix you-”  
  
“No,” says Karkat, closing his eyes. “If you fucking bandage me with this wound it’ll take p-p-perigrees f-for-” he pauses to take a deep breath. “-to heal. You let… you let me bleed out and resurrect me and I’ll be… right as rain.”  
  
You hear Terezi come to kneel down beside you, but your eyes are locked on Karkat’s face. His death light is rapidly growing brighter, it won’t take long. That doesn’t make it any easier. You feel like crying. You feel like crying but you don’t want to cry! You shouldn’t cry! You need to apologize and you need to do it now.  
  
“Karkat, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I can’t believe I thought it would be a good idea to battle my curse away. I’m so, so, so sorry.”  
  
Karkat doesn’t respond, and for a heart-stopping moment you think you underestimated how long it would take him to die. He finally slits open his eyes, his pupils trying to focus on yours, and says, “Jade, I’m pale for you.”  
  
Um.  
  
You have a feeling that this confession is really important but you have literally no idea how to reciprocate it. Is that the manic best friends one? Are you the manic best friend?  
  
“< _I said you had a type, didn’t I?_ >” Terezi laughs. She’s really not concerned at all, wow.  
  
“< _Terezi, give us some fucking space, I am having a romantic deathbed confession here and you’re cockblocking me._ >” says Karkat. He attempts to make his voice loud to say that, but he only ends up sounding more garbly. Oh gosh, is there blood in his lungs? That must hurt so bad!  
  
Terezi shrugs. “< _Suit yourself._ >” You hear her stand up and walk off somewhere.  
  
You bite your lip. Things are just getting kind of silly now. “Karkat, can we talk about this when you have a normal amount of blood supplying oxygen to your brain? And I don’t think humans can even-”  
  
“No, no, that’s okay, it would only be t-t-temp-temp- I’m only pale for you when you… when you go grim—” he stops, opens his eyes wide. His pupils shrink to the size of pin heads. “Holy pagan troll gods, I *do* have a type.”  
  
His eyes go white, his arms go slack, and he fully relaxes into your arms.  
  
Even though you’re a necromancer, it still hurts. It still hurts like all hell.  
  
You turn towards where Terezi went off to. She’s shuffling piles of skeletons off her unconscious dragon with the help of Halley. That’s nice of him.  
  
“Would you, um, toss me my pack?” Oh goddess, your voice cracked.  
  
Terezi gives one of those scary grins, the kind that Rose used to give when she was about to make fun of you, plucks your bag off Halley, and chucks it to you. You catch it, open up the main flap, and dig out your scroll case. You sort through the scrolls of ‘cone of radical ice’ and ‘Steve’s magic eyeball’ to find the resurrection spell. You unroll it, facing Karkat.  
  
“< _Let this parchment represent a contract between the requester and the Lady._ >” you read. “< _This covenant has been pre-negotiated by a designated party, and is sealed with the blood of the necromancer Aranea Serket. Resurrect the chosen host and let them be cleansed of their final wound._ >” You close the scroll. “Um. Amen.”  
  
Discs flash around your shoulders and head in the colors of the death gods. They converge on you and Karkat, picking up the lost blood and drying flecks that Karkat left behind, and zoom into his chest. The wound closes, the sickle pushing up and out through his torso, and you brush the weapon off him. You count each second as silence descends. One… two… three…  
  
Karkat sits up with a heave, coughing like a man with the plague, and you’ve never been happier at the sound of somebody’s lungs clearing out. The force of his attack also kind of hurt your knees, but you really don’t care. You throw your arms around him, burying your face into the side of his arm.  
  
“I was so worried it wouldn’t work!”  
  
“Of course it would work, you idiot, it’s a predetermined spell.” He pauses, gives one last polite cough away from you. “And you’re a damn fine necromancer anyway, you would have figured out something else even if the spell shorted out.”  
  
You smile into his shoulder. He’s so warm and alive! “I’m glad you’re okay. I’m so sorry, Karkat!”  
  
He slings an arm around your back, pushing you out and into the crook of his neck. He gives you a firm pap on the back. “It’s fine, it was like, barely your fault. Also I totally won that round. Best fighter award goes to fucking me and only me, you other asses can settle for second place.”  
  
You lift your head to look at him. “It was a team battle against me! It didn’t count.” You smile at him.  
  
And Karkat… smiles back. Your heart skips a beat.  
  
Holy. Shit. Karkat is smiling! It’s cocked to one side, like he’s so used to giving angry smirks it bled into every happy expression he’ll ever give, but it’s still genuine! His eyes are scrunched in and his teeth are peeking out and it’s amazing. It’s pure. You swear to the Lady and back it’s the best smile you’ve ever seen.  
  
If there was any grimbarkness left in you, it melted away with that little smile.  
  
… Wait… That didn’t… feel like a ‘best friends’ kind of feeling. It felt like… Are you…  
  
Terezi Pyrope chooses this moment to yell, “< _Get a room!_ >”  
  
Karkat’s smile disappears as soon as her voice reaches you. Aw… He glares at her, then flips her the bird. He gets off your lap, scooting onto the ground and almost sitting on his sickle before tossing it back into its holster.  
  
“So, Karkat… um, what does being pale for me only when I’m grimbark mean, exactly?”  
  
He bites his lip, his cute teeth peeking out. He glances nervously at Terezi. “I’d tell you, but I say we wait until we ditch the fuck out of this frozen juice treat booth.”  
  
You can’t help but agree.


	16. Well, I'm Down if You Are (Redoubt)

“That was nice of her to direct us to the road!”

“Yeah, but it was a bulge-ass move to raid your scroll case under the guise of ‘compensation.’”

“It’s fine! I did hurt her dragon, after all…” You still feel really bad about that, but she said broken wings happened all the time during training sessions anyway. Bleh, it was still a terrible thing that you did. You’re never going grimbark again! In fact, you are going to do everything in your power to actively avoid going off the deep end, because that whole situation was a mess.

Which is apparently what Karkat wants to talk to you about. And you want to talk about it too. You’re both sitting on your bedroll, cross-legged, parallel to the cozy fire lighting up the night. It’s kind of weird to be facing each other like this, close enough to start an intimate conversation but far enough away to notice that you’re going to have that kind of talk. Orange flickers across half of Karkat’s face, and your heart begins to pound.

“So…” you say.

“So…”

“You’re pale for me?”

He nods, like it takes him a huge amount of effort to do so.

“And… You’re only pale for me when I’m under threat of going grimbark, right? So, um, does that mean…” You’re stuttering, why are you stuttering? There’s no need to be nervous, this is just silly troll stuff! “… um… that you would only want to be moirails until I can get rid of my curse?”

Karkat folds his arms, and stares hard at the flat blanket spread out under the both of you. “Yeah. I’m proposing a mutually beneficial relationship. I calm you down through my incredible, yet shamefully rusty, diamond-brand skillset whenever you’re about to go into a rage and obscene amounts of my blood aren’t doing anything, and you put up with my recently developed urge to pap the shit out of you.”

You frown. “Wait, I don’t get it. I’m not sure if I can, um, pap you back. Don’t you mind that I’m human and can’t really give back those pale feelings?”

He shrugs. “A little. But the key here is that you *need* me to literally, visibly calm you down. And moirails don’t work like your sluggish human thinkpan is suggesting. One partner *always* pacifies, while the other *always* needs the pacification. I’m filling a role I crave, here.”

That sounds like a shitty way to run a relationship. You can see why Karkat’s into you that way though, you really do need him to keep your curse in check. Doses of his blood plus his emotional stability? That’s like, a pale wet dream right there, probably. You can also see how it’s a temporary thing too, since you don’t need that kind of pacification when you’re not all gray and bloodthirsty. Still, it’s a weird thing to suggest, and you don’t think that’s just your human sensibilities talking. It sounds almost like a moirail booty call, and Karkat isn’t the type to do booty calls.

You wring your hands together. “Karkat… that still seems kind of strange.”

You can feel him tense up, even from a few feet away. “And just how the fuck is it strange?”

“Well… I don’t see what you’re getting out of starting a semi-fake moirail-ship with me? Besides less of a threat of me snapping and ripping out your still-beating heart, I guess. It just seems very one sided in my direction!”

Maybe you just don’t understand the moirail thing? Maybe Karkat might feel fulfilled with having a one-sided friend crush. But judging by the way he’s hesitating, you don’t think that’s the whole story.

“You’re right,” he says, giving one breath of air that kind of sounds like a mix between desperate chuckle and someone choking. “I’m actually being one selfish fuck right now. Seriously, find me paddling up selfish creek in a boat made of images of my face while half-drowning in my own narcissistic slurry. I mean, okay, I really do care about you being safe—”

Oh, that’s nice of him to say! And very un-troll-like. You can’t help but smile.

“—But I can’t lie to you. My number one motivation for entering some kind of faux-quadrant with you is --and I’ve really over examined and destroyed my thinkpan over this so I know it’s the truth-- I need a rebound.”

The light of the fire flickers across his face as he continues, breaking into wild, jolting gestures. “And, goddesses, I know this is incredibly shitty of me, it’s like I’m using you to improve my own fuck awful self worth, which kind of turns the moirail thing on its spine lump in ways I really don’t want to think about, but I’ve been wallowing in this weird state of self pity for two sweeps now and…” He takes a deep breath. “I need help. I need help from you to get over my own shit, if you’re willing.”

Wait, what? Okay, you’re going to go over what he just said. He needs a rebound. That means he broke up with an old moirail… Two sweeps ago, he said. Holy shit, four years is a long time to go without getting over a person! He looks so guilty about it too, like he’s guilty for wanting something for himself. He probably is! He wants someone to fill his urge to do troll BFF activities.

He’s nervous at your lack of reaction. He keeps rambling. “And… and you’re perfect for this because you’re not a troll, because you’re not going to be bulged over backwards if I have some kind of awful episode and decide to unceremoniously drop the relationship. I’ll be forced to move the fuck on in the future anyway, when we get you back to ten hundred percent normal Jade Harley.” He hesitates, dropping into a dead serious tone. “And, go figure, I’ve come to actually give a shit about you. I’m going to respect your goddamn feelings about this and I am going to respect them hardcore. So…”

Oh, that’s so sweet! You didn’t expect that last part to come from Karkat. This actually doesn’t sound like a bad deal… As long as you don’t have to do anything weird to reciprocate the moirail-ship. He looks like he’s going to bite through his lip from sheer nerves, so you had better respond…

“Sure, Karkat. I’ll be your temporary, grimbark moirail! Do I have to do anything special or is it all you?”

His face lights up. Not in the ‘break into a grin’ sort of way that you’re used to seeing someone’s face light up in, but a way that looks like a weight has been taken off him. His eyebrows fall, his mouth stops scowling, an he looks so relaxed you’re worried he’s about to break into tears. Wow, this must have really been like confessing your love to a crush for him, huh? It’s kind of hard to relate to that when it’s a weird troll friendship thing.

“Fuck, really? I- Shit, I don’t know how to- I- _< Thank you, Jade. Thank you._ >” He covers up his eyes with his sleeve. Oh my gosh, he’s going to cry isn’t he? He’s totally tearing up. Oh no, this is ridiculous! Should you hug him or something? Is that in good moirail form??? You don’t want to be rude!

Before you can do anything about it Karkat manages to recover, give a brief sniffle, and lower his arm. “Sorry. Er, yeah, don’t have to do shit really, just do what you’ve normally been doing. Being your dorky self, occasionally shifting into batshit mode, requiring my hemofluid, you know, the usual.” He blinks a few times, trying to make his eyes less puffy. “And, fuck, I really hope you don’t care about me getting too close to you. I know you kind of snapped at me last time I tried to say I was pale for you.”

Last time he tried to say he was pale for you? When was- Oh. Ohhhh, that’s what he wanted to confess to you that night in the fields. That’s why he was so close, because he had a troll BFF crush on you! That’s totally fine then, if it’s a friend thing.

Right?

“It’s fine, I don’t mind.” Your chest gets tight for some reason. Why? It’s probably because of the culture shock or something. Yeah, that’s totally it.

Wait, that night he told you that his confession had something to do with his backstory. You so want to know his backstory! This seems like an excellent time to bring it up, now that you’re having a heart-to-heart. “Karkat, does this mean you’ll finally tell me what happened in the years after we stopped talking?”

“How the tables have turned, you absolute fuck.” Karkat molds his mouth into a terrifying smile, like he’s trying to turn himself into some kind of souvenir doll. He starts to imitate you in a distressingly chirpy voice. “Let’s swap stories!!! I’ll tell you how Dave turned into a squawkbeast if you tell me how you fucked up your leg!!!”

You fold your arms, trying to look as angry as possible. “I did not say ‘fuck!’ And are we really going to do that?”

He gets serious again, surprisingly. “I don’t see why not. We’ve got all the time in the world. If you really, really don’t want to tell me… You don’t have to. I’d like to tell you what happened to me, however, since you’ve got a right to know as my pale partner.”

He gave you an out? You’re tempted to take it. Just thinking about telling that Dave story makes you nervous, and thinking about telling Karkat in particular fills your head with images of breaking out into cold sweats. You’re not even the kind of person who breaks out into cold sweats! What’s up with that!

But, no, that’s not fair to Karkat. He deserves to know! You’d definitely consider him a friend at this point, and if he’s going to share a story that means a lot to him… Well, you’ve got to buck up and be mature! You can’t let being scared get in the way! You’re Jade Harley, and you don’t get scared!

“No, I said I’d tell you mine if you told me yours! Or something like that…” You might as well go first. It’s like plunging into a cold lake! You just gotta go for it. Maybe it might even feel refreshing, getting it off your chest. Or… it might just feel like jumping into an ice cold lake.

“Mind if I start?” you ask.

He nods, taking you seriously, and you begin.

“It started on a pretty normal day, maybe three or so months after you stopped being my knight. I just brought him to a dungeon, like usual…”


	17. AIvel's Maze

You are currently standing in the long awaited center of some kind of weird indoor hedgemaze and waiting for Dave to debate an illusion that looks like his cousin out of existence. Who would have thought all this effort battling shadows through a bizarre garden would end up with this? You sure didn’t.

“Are you positive you’re not Dirk? Because you’re probably the most Dirk-like being in existence outside of Dirk. And you might be even more Dirk-like than him, not sure, haven’t checked. Engage me in a rap battle to prove your true form.”

“No.”

“C’mon, do it, don’t make me call you a squawkbeast and make ‘caw-caw’ at you while flapping my arms around, I know you hate that, Dirk.”

“I’m not Dirk. I am AIvel PuzzleHal, maker and breaker of puzzles, solver of what cannot be solved, yadda yadda. I’m usually pretty ugly, I just borrowed this form from your memories to make introductions easier.”

You give Dave an encouraging pat on the shoulder. “I’m pretty sure he’s telling the truth, Dave. Let’s just get this boss battle over with and leave!”

“Right you are, angelcake. This fucker was six ways to dead wrong attempting to pick the form of someone I remotely care about. You take his right and I take his left, we’ll split him 50/50 like two mothers fighting over one baby.”

PuzzleHal holds out his hands, long, dry robes dangling off his wrists like dead seaweed. Like, the guy sure does look like Dirk, but couldn’t he have picked a better wardrobe? Dirk wouldn’t wear that kind of thing in a million years. 

“Hold up,” he says, cool as ever. “Kill me and you get nothing. Solve my question, and you get-”

“Phat loot.” says Dave.

PuzzleHal absorbs the colloquialism in stride. “Sure, yes, if you succeed, otherwise-”

“Die a horrible death, right?” you say, cheerfully. You’ve heard this schpeel a million times. Usually Dave just convinces you to fight the boss guy anyway since the treasure is generally in their pockets or somewhere else pretty obvious, but sometimes you like playing along with silly riddles. You think you’ll try out this guy’s brain teaser today! “What’s your puzzle?”

“Not a puzzle, but a question. However, I will warn you, there is a right way to answer this and it requires unblinking objectivity.”

“Hell yeah, I love standardized tests,” says Dave. “Bring it.”

“As you wish. The question is --and take all the time you need as this is incredibly important--” He pauses before asking, the silence echoing throughout the dungeon in heavy waves. “What can change the nature of a man?”

“A new gun.” you say, without hesitating.

“To crush your enemies. See them driven before you. Hear the lamentations of their women.” says Dave at the same time.

You watch PuzzleHal fizzle with illusory rage. You and Dave high five each other automatically. Hell yeah, messing with douchebag constructs! A solid win for the both of you!

“Fuck you,” says PuzzleHal. “There’s a time and a place for silliness and being in the inner sanctum of an evil demon wizard hag-” he points at himself. “-Is not it. However, since my weakness happens to be curiosity and I must know your real thoughts, I’ll give you both the chance to answer again. And, here’s a hint: most rational beings answer with overreaching concepts such as ‘love’ or ‘time’ or ‘belief.’ So, I ask again: What can change the nature of a man?”

“Phat loot.” says Dave.

“Taxidermy!” you say at the same time.

PuzzleHal scoffs. “Wow, you fucked that up hardcore. I would have literally taken anything, and then dictated the treasure based on that. Or fought you, whatever.”

“Yeah, you should have accepted taxidermy and then thrown dead squirrels at us.” says Dave. He gives you a curt nod. “That was a fucking fantastic answer, sweetpea.”

You give Dave’s arm a squeeze for supporting you, and say, “Taxidermy did change my grandpa a whole lot.”

PuzzleHal screams in soundless rage, an odd thing to see on the usually calm Dirk’s face. “No, you know what, I’m not going to play into your little mind games, power couple. I’m going to give you the worst thing I have to offer-- a duel combo punishment based off your weaknesses. And, since you failed to respond correctly, I’m forced to infer the fuck out of your answers. You-” he points at Dave. “-believe materialism changes a man. And you-” he points at you. “-believe death changes a man.”

“Hey, death doesn’t change anybody, they’re pretty much the same postmortem!” you say. But as soon as you finish your outburst, PuzzleHal disappears in a puff of fake-smoke, leaving you behind in the very center of a hedge maze.

Dave shrugs, sheathing his broken swords. “That turned out to be the shittiest dungeon I’ve seen in a while. I mean, really, a dialogue-based final challenge? I say we blow this joint and go get ice cream. What about you, honeybee?”

You’re about to agree before you take a second glance at where PuzzleHal was. There’s something flat and shiny lying in the dark grass where he stood. You tug on Dave to get a closer look at it, and you both lean over what appears to be a finely crafted cuirass with a gear icon rusted on it. Phat loot, indeed.

“How much do you want to bet that thing’s cursed?” asks Dave.

“Um, nothing, because there’s no way it isn’t.”

“I say we ignore it just to piss off the evil demon wizard.”

“I couldn’t agree more!”

You both spin on your heels in tandem, ready to make your exit from the hedge maze. However, there’s something blocking your path! 

“Hey, no fair,” says Dave, staring down the zombie in your way. “We’re done with the dungeon. No more random encounters.”

Where did this warrior even come from? There wasn’t a single dead body in the whole maze when you first checked it out with your powers… She looks kind of strong, too. She’s wearing chain mail and a hat with horns on it, and the hollow sockets of her skull are glowing red. When you close your eyes and try to sense where she came from… she just looks like a normal corpse. Nobody’s controlling her, and she shines gold just waiting for you to possess her.

“Maybe I can convince her to leave us alone…” you say, opening your eyes. “Hey, zombie! Will you turn back down that path and go away? We’re done with fighting and kind of want ice cream now. You’re welcome to join us!”

“No, sugarplum, don’t invite her on our ice cream date. I don’t want an undead third wheel, you already bring along too many of those.”

You’re about to debate him when the zombie raises her sword, gesturing towards the cursed cuirass you left on the ground. She then points at you with her sword, rust flaking off the tip as she swings it with the stunting movement of the undead.

“MATERIALISM OR DEATH. WHAT CHANGES THE NATURE OF A MAN.”

“Uh huh, okay I get it.” says Dave. “Either I put on some dumbass cuirass or you kill shnookums, right? Yeah, uh, neither of those things are going to happen. Shall we murder this chick or shall we double murder this chick?”

“I say double murder! This should be pretty easy.” You sling out your blunderbuss+2, crook it under your arm, and aim it in her general direction. You’re close enough to hit no matter where you fire, so all you have to do is pull the trigger…

… and nothing happens.

“Damn, it jammed,” you say, putting the safety on and trying to shake out the barrel. “I should really save up for the +3 edition.”

“Hey, it’s cool, pookie, I can take care of this. I’m going to make this fucker so dead she’ll wish she’d never died.”

Okay, that last line kind of confused you, but you can’t ask about it because Dave’s already got swords out and is flashstepping the enemy. He takes a swipe at her side with a shitty sword, falsesteps, and dives for her back with his real weapon. She doesn’t fall for the trick, turning with bone-crushing dexterity to parry and counter, shoving the butt of her sword straight into his stomach. It clangs against his platemail, probably leaving a dent, and he uses the force generated from her strike to speedstep to her front.

She anticipates him with her heavy sword, just two milliseconds ahead of him, and nicks his pauldron. He didn’t expect that, and his attack turns into a hastily thought dodge outside of her range. As he takes one large step backwards, she goes in for a deadly lunge on his right radioulnar joint. Oh no! You always warned him that he needs some armor on the inside of his arms!

She breaks right through his clothing above his underarm, and Dave has the wherewithal to continue his dodge backwards instead of pausing from the pain. You hear the slick note of the old rust slide its way in and out of his skin, and Dave drops his sword reflexively.

He backs up fast, grimacing and clutching the deep cut in the bend of his arm, but he doesn’t need to worry since the zombie doesn’t move to chase him. She appears content just guarding the exit. You immediately go to your pack, attempting to dig up some bandages for him. Blood is pooling through his fingers and staining his undershirt.

“Well, this hurts like shit,” he says, attempting to stay monotone but the words coming out in choked pangs. “Got any pain killer in there? Something to prevent zombie tetanus?”

You pull out a white roll. “Don’t worry, there’s a healer once we get out of here! Hold out your-”

You’re interrupted by the zombie swinging her sword towards you. Shit! You didn’t think she was actually going to fight you! You have to abandon your bandaging duties in order to dodge. Dave unsheathes another sword with his working arm, ready to attack, but you know he’s not in a good enough shape to be jumping into a hard battle right now!

“It’s okay, Dave, I’ll just take care of this real quick.”

“Are you sure? I mean, no rush here, but-”

You close your eyes, focusing on the chattering golden corpse shambling towards you, and you bargain away a tiny bit of your soul to it. You feel the transfer happening, her hands becoming your own, her legs falling under your control, her nervous system yours for the taking. Easy-peasy. You’ve done harder stuff in your slee-

You rapidly lose control of your body as you’re fully transfered into the zombie.

What the hell?

Okay, you know you didn’t give that much away! You shouldn’t have fully exchanged souls here! You activate the vision in your weird red eye sockets and watch your real body slump to the ground without life in it. Your real body does a bit of a poor landing, faceplanting into the ground. Well, at least there’s soft grass beneath you? You hope your glasses didn’t break.

Dave does three doubletakes between you and your real body before looking into your vision field and saying, “Sweetpotato, you in there?”

You flex your skeletal hands, one holding a sword, and get a feel for your new body. Green sparks from your soul scatter across the nonexistent muscles, creating form and shape where none exist. You probably look rad as all hell, but you still don’t want to stay in a mostly-rotted corpse for very long.

“UM, YEAH.” you say, through a tongue that you have to constantly have to think about holding together otherwise it’ll flake into pieces. Your voice comes out like someone raking a bunch of leaves. “I’M NOT SURE WHAT HAPPENED. I THINK I’LL JUST TRANSFER BACK. GET READY TO DASH TO THE EXIT.”

“Gotcha, sugamuffin.”

You focus on your own corpse, singing with a familiar, golden light. You raise your arms to help transfer, and…

…swing your sword at Dave.

“What the fuck!” he yells, thankfully dodging.

“I’M SO SORRY.” you say, trying to back away from him. “I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT’S HAPPENING. I THINK THIS BODY IS CURSED.”

Unfortunately, your host won’t follow your demands, and you lunge for him again. This time, he counters with his good arm and weapon, sliding your sword down and away from him in one swift movement.

“Shit, cupcake, you’re not pissed at me for the absurd amount of petnames I’ve been throwing around lately, right?”

“NO. WELL, KIND OF, BUT NOT PISSED ENOUGH TO STAB YOU. I DON’T KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON.” you plant your feet, your movements not your own, and get ready for a large thrust. You leave your skeletal ribcage wide open, though! Dave has room to take a hit. “QUICK, STRIKE ME.”

Dave does a sidestep, cutting it close as he attempts to cradle his wounded arm. Your sword just barely whizzes by his shoulder. “Naw, snookie, I can’t fight you. You know that.”

“WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO?” you wind up your sword again, like you’re going to smack him with the blunt side.

“I dunno, maybe there’s something to that cuirass.” He dives towards the metal as you take a swing at him, completely missing. He leaves a trail of spattered blood over the grass as he jumps. Oh no! He must really be hurting.

“NO, DAVE. DON’T YOU DARE PICK THAT UP. WE DON’T KNOW WHAT IT DOES.”

He plants his feet, and gently picks it up with one arm. It’s perfectly his size and everything, like the cuirass was made for him. “See? We’re good. I mean, it’s a clear choice here, either I put on this swank ass armor and get some kind of wacky effect that we pass down as a funny story through the ages, or you stay dead and attacking me forever.”

He’s kind of jumping to conclusions a bit, there. You raise your sword again as he starts to unhook the metal slots on the chestpiece. You’re glad your host body is trying to attack him! You don’t want him to do this!

“AREN’T YOU BEING HASTY. LET’S THINK ABOUT THIS FOR A SECOND. PLEASE.”

“Naw. I’m fucked either way, with you attacking me like that and my arm oozing grape jelly.” He slings the front panel over his chest, and it makes a dark sound like a large gong against his already present armor. “What can change the nature of a man? Hope it’s something hilarious.”

“NO, WAIT. YOU’RE BEING DUMB. DON’T DO THIS.”

He hooks the armor around his back and smirks. You never see him smirk. Oh no, this is a goodbye isn’t it? You really don’t want him to do this! You don’t want him to sacrifice anything for you! “Come on, Jade. I know whatever mess I get into, you’ll get me out of it. Kisses and hugs, send my love to Lalonde.”

He snaps the final clasp around his waist just as you bring your sword down over his head…


	18. Welcome to Cry Night, Motherfucker (part 1)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the chapter updates in batches of twos, sometimes I write the latter half before the first half and then realize it's too long for one chapter. I need to get my priorities in order.

“So, what happened next?”

“Oh, um, suddenly I was back in my body and Dave was a little orange sparrow with cool shades. The zombie was just… totally gone.”

Okay, that wasn’t so hard. Karkat was very attentive and patient with you as you told the story, and he didn’t even laugh at Dave’s silly petnames! Although he totally should have. Kudos to him for keeping a straight face the whole time! He was an excellent listener.

Karkat taps his fingers against the bedroll in the silence. “Hey, Jade, just let me know if I’m way out of the fucking line here by asking this, but… I don’t get it. Why are you so adverse to telling that story? It was kind of shitty that Dave turned into a squawkbeast, but… so what? It was his choice.”

You hesitate. You know the reason, but should you tell Karkat? You didn’t think he’d be perceptive enough to ask the question, but you guess you should really know him better by now. But still, you don’t want to send your emotions into a tumble. You were doing so good, and you hate when you get sad or regretful. Strong ladies shouldn’t be sad or filled with regrets! 

“It’s because… I dunno, I hate when people try to throw things away for me. I can take care of myself! I don’t want anybody to sacrifice anything for me when it’s just a dumb thing to do…”

You watch Karkat’s eyes flicker upwards, than back to you. His eyelashes are sharp like his sickles-- you’ve never noticed that before. It’s pretty. 

"Is that all?” he says.

You give in with your very next breath. Oh gosh, one flick of his beautiful eyelashes and you’re apparently toast. Just wreaked. “No. That’s not all. Well, I mean, that’s part of it, but…”

Your nose starts to run with the sudden onslaught of sinus pressure. Stop that, nose! You’re strong, you can handle this. You wipe it on your sleeve. “It’s what happened after that, I guess. I mean, Dave trusted me to go find a cure for him, and… I… couldn’t. I-I- couldn’t.”

Tears start pooling at the sides of your eyes. Oh no! Maybe you can hide it by saying it’s allergies. “I couldn’t… do… sorry, I have… allergic to grass, sorry-”

Karkat’s face doesn’t change, solemn and unblinking in the light of the fire. He’s attentive, it’s so attentive it makes you want to cry. You put your arm over your eyes so he can’t see what your suddenly overactive tear ducts are doing.

Oh no, you’re having a breakdown, aren’t you? Anything but this.

You’ve got no idea how Karkat’s reacting to this and you don’t want to know. You want to hide and disappear forever, curl up under your blanket and fall asleep straight away. Maybe if you’re nice enough, Karkat will pretend he never saw this happening. Would Karkat do that for you?

Your mouth opens beyond your control, and your voice comes out loud and warbly against the river of tears.

“I-I-I couldn’t do it! I couldn’t find anything to fix him! He trusted me, but he was like that, for-” a big sniffle, you try to reign it all in, but it only makes it worse. “-three years! He was a sentient _bird_ for three years! Three years of just tweeting in this awful place in my backyard, unable to communicate or do anything himself! Rose finally, finally found something, but I was so weak! I couldn’t do anything to pay him back for saving me! I failed, I fucked it up, I couldn’t do anything! I couldn’t even stay faithful! I cheated on a fucking bird, Karkat!

“Did you know- did you know, Karkat, that he won’t even tell me what it was like for those three years? He just puts on his stupid coolkid face and pretends everything is fine now. It’s not fine! I know he was perceptive, I know he noticed that I couldn’t stay committed even though I loved him, I know he noticed how I got weak, I know he noticed I changed tactics from trying to mix something for him to trying to get out of my fucking house.

“Do you know how much I ran around trying to look for cures? I used to plan everything, absolutely everything, and I just gave that all up, because, like, what was the point if you weren’t sure of yourself? What’s the point when you won’t be able to accomplish something or help someone even if you try your hardest? I started wandering around like some sad ghost! I just went to random places and explored and tried to forget but at the same time trying to find something to fix Dave and it was terrible. I was so weak. I am so weak! And I couldn’t even do it in the end, I still couldn’t do it, even now.

“And I know he forgives me, I know I should be over it, I know. But that doesn’t stop me from knowing deep down that I’m a weak, terrible person who can’t do what I expect of myself. I’m sorry, even now, I can’t stop fucking crying no matter how hard I try! I went overboard even telling you this dumb story and I need to stop, I need to stop!”

You can feel tears pouring down your cheeks and it’s gross. There’s no hope of pretending now, pretending you’re not a big baby. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m crying.”

There’s a few seconds of terrifying silence, broken only by your embarrassingly heavy breaths. Karkat’s voice, patient and level, cuts through the darkness of your sleeve.

“May I?”

You have no idea what he’s offering, but you nod anyway. You feel like a mess, and there’s absolutely nothing that can get worse. Might as well go along with whatever he’s planning. He’s probably going to make fun of you.

You feel his hand around your own, grabbing the blanket underneath you, and he gently tugs you away from it. He lifts your hand up by the palm, and you’re so surprised by this notion that you raise your head up from under your sleeve. Like, usually when people want to comfort someone, they hug them. What is Karkat doing?

Karkat’s not looking at you, which is good because you probably look like you scrubbed your face with sharp rocks, instead focusing on bringing your hand towards him like a lead in a dance. He leans over so you don’t have to stretch, and lifts your hand to his face.

He closes his eyes like he’s going to pass into a peaceful sleep, then kisses your hand.

His lips are a little chapped, but they’re still soft against your fingers as he presses them towards the middle of your knuckles. Karkat’s kissed your hand before, when he took the vows to be your temporary knight, but this kiss? Totally different. That kiss was chaste and nervous. This? This kiss has meaning. Oomph. You can just feel sentimentality dripping off him as he lingers against your skin, sending warmth shimmering up your arm. He backs away with this odd sense of regret, lowering your hand back down to the blanket. He keeps his own over yours, scooting closer so that your knees almost touch.

Well, as weird as that was, it did get you to stop hyperventilating.

“Sorry,” he says. “That was pretty fucking pale. I know you’re not grimdark right now, but I deemed it necessary.”

He reaches up to your face, pushing your glasses up, and wipes away a tear with his thumb. He’s warm, so warm, and you have to bite your lip to stop from sighing into him as he removes his hand.

“Hey, Jade, I’m not sure if anyone’s told you this since everyone in your life seems to be a fucking idiot, but it’s okay to be sad sometimes.”

You blink at him, trying to clear the foggy wet spots away from your vision, and he looks back at you almost… kindly. Karkat looks very kind, actually. He’s leaning forward, arms on his knees, clearly interested in what you have to say. His mouth is turned up just slightly at the corners, giving just the barest impression of a smile. His eyes are red and warm as ever, reflecting the light of the fire in short sparks.

“I don’t know, I just… I don’t think I should be sad.”

“Why not?”

“Because I need to get over it so I can be strong and move on.”

“That’s fucking dumb. Like, dumber than anything I could think up. I thought you were supposed to have an Intelligence score of 18.”

“Actually, I think this would be a Wisdom thing…”

“Whatever!” Karkat squeezes your hand. Your fingers fold around him like they’re on autopilot. “What I mean to spoonfeed into your auricular sponge clots is that you need to take your damn time with yourself. Who gives a shit if something happened a long time ago and you still haven’t recovered?”

“I do…”

“Maybe if you weren’t rushing through life so fucking fast-”

“I like fast!”

“Says the fucking tank of the party.”

You give a big sniff and wipe your eyes again. “Asshole. You need to be nicer.”

He spreads his arms apart. “And you need a fucking hug. Come here.”

You just kinda tilt yourself forward on your knees and fall into his arms embarrassingly fast. You faceplant into his chest and you’re probably getting snot on his qipao but you’re pretty sure neither of you care. He drapes his arms gently around your shoulders, and places his warm and solid palms against your back. It’s… nice. It’s like wrapping yourself in safe blankets during a big storm.

“Okay, I’m fine now.” you say, your voice muffled by Karkat’s chest and the remnants of a few sobs. “Your turn to tell your story, right?”

“Hey, hold on a sec first, you can’t just take a leg nub-first jump into the cold piss of Karkat Vantas’s fireside chat. Let’s just wait here a bit.”

“And do what?”

“I dunno, listen to the silence and beauty of nature for all I care. As an expert in the field of rapidly vacillating emotions, I can say with absolute authority that you need at least a few minutes to absorb all that shit back into your bloodpusher.”

“… Um, okay, I guess.”

You wonder if he heard you, you said it pretty quietly. You feel his qipao getting wet under your face. The fabric is starting to stick to your scrunched up cheek. Are you still crying? You're probably making a really ugly face too! You need to stop, you need to back off, put on a smile-

Karkat gives you a squeeze, and you feel him shift, his cheek gently brushing the fur on your ear.

“Take your time,” he whispers. “All the time you need.”

You stop yourself, settle back in, and take your goddamn time.


	19. Gem of the Empire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kankri gives you a warning about this, but remember to check the tags (there is also a related image).

“This fucktrain of a story requires a bit of preamble before we drive it straight into sad town,” Karkat says, re-situating in a crosslegged position away from you. “I guess it starts off with this overly simplified statement: I had a moirail for four sweeps.”

“The same one?” Eight years is a long time to date someone. Er, friend-date, you guess?

“Yeah. He was…” Karkat hesitates, then looks away from you. “I don’t know how to say this in Common. _< He was the right hand of my strike._ >”

You’re not sure how to say that in Common either. The verb used at the end there is a pun on the word ‘ _< complete_.  >’ You suppose that ‘he completed me’ or ‘he was the love of my life’ could stand in. Either way, this dude clearly meant a lot to Karkat. You let him continue with his story.

“Since we were six sweeps, he belonged to me. You know what it’s like to have someone that’s truly, utterly, *yours*? Someone who needs you more than anything else in this decrepit life?”

That sounds super possessive and unhealthy to you, but you’re aware that there’s some weird biological quirks with trolls that make that kind of relationship more okay than if they were both humans. Especially with the purpler bloods on the hemospectrum, who get really moody. You still don’t get it, but you can respect Karkat’s feelings on the matter.

“I don’t think I’ve ever felt like that.” you say. “What was he like?”

“Really vapid, a total asshole. Rolled over and took it whenever I insulted him or anything, then called me a miracle. Sometimes he’d go completely off his rocker, but I’d be there to keep him in check. It was awesome. Here, I brought his last letter he sent me. I’ll show you.”

He reaches over to his pack, pulls out a crumpled piece of parchment with a few mysterious green stains on it, and hands it to you. You smooth it out and read it. Oh gosh, this is challenging. It’s written in like, three different alphabets with what looks like a bunch of crayons.

_< Hey, best bro. Don’t you worry your sweet self, I didn’t get pulled into that shit, the Grand Highblood couldn’t keep this motherfucker chained down or brainwashed. I’m free like a bird, got my hair out in the wind like one of your romance novel ladies. I’ll see you when you get out of there, when you get away from those humans getting all up in your business. Can’t fucking wait! I could use a shooshing like whoa. Good luck in the conflicts, bro. _

_Diamonds are motherfucking forever,_  
_Gamzee >  
_

Karkat grabs it back when you’re done. “I still have no clue why he was there. He said he wouldn’t be there.”

“Be where?”

Karkat rolls his eyes at you like you’re being silly. “At the juggalo conflicts. You know, when a fifth of an overpowered hemocaste with murder powers thinkpanwashed each other and tried to take over the empire? And I saved every one of your asses singlehandedly?”

“Oh, he was there?” A weird sort of empathy hits you, like you know how this story is going to turn out. You don’t know much about that battle, but you know that the juggalos were utterly slaughtered by the Vantas’ before their plan to overthrow the Alternian Empire could come to fruition. That was the last you heard of Karkat before you came to him about your curse about four years later.

“Yeah.” he sighs, like he’s preparing himself for a fight. “It was a cheery ass day in the mountains, birds were chirping, the whole deal. It was me and Kankri, ‘ _< The Gems of the Empire_ >’ they used to call us…”

*****

You’re currently standing utterly defenseless on a hill, staring down a whole battalion of unorganized juggalos in the valley below who are probably going to attempt to murder you any time now. Of course, who gives a fuck about them, your main concern is what a total dick Kankri Vantas is being.

“So, let’s be clear here, since I, as a pacifist, have a poor mind as a military strategist,” says Kankri. “I release their inherent disposition so their violence will be constrained within their own group as nature intended, and you… defend me?”

Shitting assholes, you do not want to talk to this guy right now. “Yup.”

“I would appreciate it if you managed to avoid killing them, as we will not have necromancers on staff to resurrect them, as well as the illegality of resurrecting them after the battle.”

“Kankri, we are literally a two troll army against a hivemind of about 700 angry murderous fuckwads whose idea of compromise is to swing a spiked bat at the person they’re talking to, and you expect me to play nice?”

“Yes.”

You pray to every god that’s listening that you won’t snap and turn on Kankri in the midst of the battle. “You know what, fuck it, you defend your own goddamn self. Do the exploding limb thing you do.”

Kankri raises his lip in what he probably assumes is a polite sneer. “You know I’m morally opposed to using my abilities to cause that kind of distress, on the grounds it lowers people permanently to an underprivileged status.”

Wow, what an asshole. You cannot believe the Alternian/Earthen Mage Coalition managed to convince this misguided motherfucker to murder a bunch of clowns. You heard they gave him some bullshit about how it was morally correct to convince purple bloods to turn on each other. Interclass warfare is their goddess-given natural state or whatever. You know that’s not true, since your moirail is totally fucking fine most of the time, and even when he’s not, you’re there to keep him in check.

A tiny speck of worry pops up in your chest, but you stamp it down before it can snowball out of control. He’s fine, he told you he would be fine, he’s not here. All you have to do is just kill some faceless clowns.

Some random human toddles up to you from the fort down the hill, face red with the effort of climbing. “ _< Mr. Vantas_ , >” she says to you in Common. “ _< Backup is ready in case of emergency, whistle if one of you ——————————————._ >”

“< _Uh, sure, got it._ >” you say. Wow, your Common really sucks tits. Literal tits. You’ve really got to learn some new vocabulary, you sound like a rusty wagon linguistic-wise.

You turn your back on her and let her run back to the shoddy fortification they built behind the hill you’re standing on. Is that thing built for a siege? Probably not, they’re all counting on the two of you. And you’ve got to say they have high hopes for someone who just figured out how to swing a sickle with slightly more oomph than a floppy bulge and another guy who has literally never been in a fight. Kankri’s probably going to piss his robes before the army even gets close.

Which, honestly, they don’t have that far to go. About seven hundred clowns all wait in the valley before you, a shambling mass the color a rainbow makes when you mix it all together in a pile of shit. They’re equipped with the same thing: torches and spiked juggling clubs, with the muscles to match. No real armor either, just paint on paint on blood. You guess they don’t expect anybody to get close to them, what with the insta-kill chucklevoodoo shit they can do.

The whole fucking battalion is just staring up at the two of you, like they expected more resistance and don’t know whether to march on or break into celebration. It would almost be unnerving, but you really can’t bring yourself to give any sort of shit about juggalos. Besides, Kankri’s going to take out like, what, 9/10ths of them before they get to you? You’re just here for backup and strategy because Kanrki’s an incompetent little fuckwad who thinks he knows everything.

You see something happening in the crowd before you, an uproarious laughter carrying throughout the hundreds, causing the whole mass to shake like a jar full of gross-ass grape grubsauce. They all turn in tandem, their giggling resounding up the valley, and fire their chucklevoodoos towards the both of you.

It sounds like this giant roar, like they’re all trying to viscerally vomit up their own organs through screaming a bunch, but the only thing that happens to you is that your hood flies off in the resulting wind from the valley. Fuck it, it was a stupid fashion choice anyway.

You hear a troll from somewhere down at the fort scream sharply and quickly. Huh, you guess they didn’t get the memo of ‘stay the fuck away from the battle or your nervous system will horribly die.’ Too bad.

You elbow Kankri in the side as the clowns begin to murmur in confusion about the two of you not imploding. “Now’s a good time to start. Begin in the back then close the middle in from the front when they notice you’re the puppet master behind this.”

Kankri’s silent for a second, probably considering the moral arguments for and against what he’s about to do or some shit, then spreads his hands out over the valley. “Trigger warning: There will be excessive violence and some gore in the following few minutes.”

You groan, like you haven’t seen people violently die in front of you before. Seriously, what did he think you were being trained for, exactly? Whatever, Kankri. Just, what the fuck ever.

True to his word, he starts his work. At first, you simply watch his fingers as nothing immediately happens in the crowd. He looks like he’s twisting hundreds of imaginary knobs, all lined up in dainty fucking rows underneath him, and he needs to do it in a certain order or something will explode.

Something probably will explode.

In a move of brilliance by the empire, Kankri was not trained in the fighting arts like you were. Instead, they forced him through magic courses. He couldn’t do anything of course, being immune as shit, so they dumped him with an cerulean-blooded necromancer as a last ditch effort to train him into a powerhouse.

And it worked. But his power turned out different than what the empire wanted for him. It added a little something they were incredibly scared of, a little something extra allowing him to march into the palace and take absolute control of the government if he had any inkling to do so. They found out something that caused them to collectively wet their pants as Kankri failed to take over the bodies of the dead and instead took over the body of his own instructor.

They found out Kankri Vantas is a biomancer. Someone who could control the living.

Even you, if he wanted. Thankfully he’s an incompetent piece of shit who can barely manage to dress himself in the morning. The empire likes to play off that, as well as your own bulge wetting incompetence, and you’re fully aware of it. If the two of you could get your heads out of your own assholes, you could take over the continent in a matter of weeks.

You watch as the clowns in the back of the army block start to squirm and shift. They’re too far away to see clearly, but you can bet they’re currently attempting to smash each others skulls in with their respective clubs. You wonder how Kankri’s managing this fuckery. Taking away their self-preservation instincts? Removing their inclination to be team players? You’ve really got no clue, you could never do this. You don’t think it’s right, or fair, or whatever the fuck else clashes against your scruples. But it’s not up to you, it’s whatever the empire wants. Not like you have shit else to do, anyway.

The movements start to get bigger in the back of the army, the juggalos breaking out into full on combat, destroying each other and sinking their clubs into one another like they’re tenderizing meat. At least, you think that’s what they’re doing, you still can’t really see. The chaos and bloody confusion gets bigger and bigger, taking over at least two hundred. The clowns in the front start looking behind them, finally noticing that over a quarter of their battalion isn’t going to be chums and go along with the plan.

You elbow Kankri again. “Switch to the front.”

Kankri doesn’t respond, wordlessly moving his hands just slightly back, and continuing his fast motion of turning knobs like the whole fucking world depends on it. You wonder how much concentration this requires, like, does he have to constantly be aware of every vile brain that he’s editing at its core? You hope not, Kankri was always shit at micromanaging.

The trolls in the front begin to smash at each other with clubs and screaming. There’s a lot of blood flying everywhere and it looks like a huge fucking mess. You’re immensely thankful you’re not needed at the moment.

A straggler disengages from the crowd, charging at you from the bottom of the hill, her eyes flaring red and her face paint smeared with some other chump’s blood. You don’t feel like meeting her head-on, so you pluck a throwing knife from under your obi and chuck it at her with force enough to kill. It hits her in the chest and she goes down. Shot to the heart, motherfucker.

Kankri’s movements span outwards again, towards the middle. The whole battalion under you is a mass of violent orgy, and your stomach lurches at the sight of hundreds weapons getting embedded in various body parts. Wow, get it the fuck together, Karkat. What kind of troll are you?

Kankri lowers his arms, folds them together, and says, “Done. I have unlocked their true nature and they will now be fighting anything they lay their eyes upon."

You suppose he doesn’t have to think about it then. You nudge him behind you a few feet, and ready your sickles. Your job is to take out any stragglers that try to get over the hill. Just one of those juggalos could take out around twenty people with chucklevoodoos alone, and you’re unbelievably not okay with that scenario.

It doesn’t take long for about ten to start charging you full on. You slide down the hill a bit, just to get some space in between you and the biomancer, and start to sink in to that now familiar skin of being battle-ready. You take a deep breath.

Remember what you learned as Jade's knight in training: just don’t think about it. Don’t think about it. Your past and future selves can think about it, fuck those guys. You’re here, right now, and that’s all you have to care about. Just your present self. And with that knowledge, you can take on anything.

You dodge a club, duck under the spikes, skim his chest with one of your sickles, then lash out with the other into his neck. He’s dead, you spin, kick one in the bulge, shove her nose cartilage into her brain with the butt of your handle. It’s just you, you’re doing great, you’re taking these fuckers down, don’t linger on any of them.

You accidentally embed your sickle in the last of the ten, and decide to abandon it and draw another one from behind your back. Another few are rushing you, you can do this.

You take down one, two, fifteen, their heavy weapons useless against your speed, their chucklevoodoos doing fuck all against your mutant blood. It doesn’t feel good, exactly, to be slaughtering them, but damn do you feel cool as shit. This is what you were trained for, to be a fucking murder machine, and after all these sweeps you’re finally doing a bang up job.

You spin to another faceless troll, ready your scythe up against his neck, and do the worst thing you could possibly do at the moment.

You think about it.

You freeze up, your blade against his jugular, everything else becoming immaterial, irrelevant, to who faces you. You recognize him. Oh fuck, *you recognize him.*

“Gamzee?” you say, staring down the troll you currently have trapped in the semi-circle of your blade. Oh fuck. Fucking hell. There’s no way it’s not him, that’s his face paint, that’s his height, that’s his hair, that’s his smell, that’s him to the core. No, oh gods, no, you thought he wouldn’t be here. He swore he wouldn’t be here.

His eyes are flashing red with the rage of the highbloods, his normally lazy lids open to killer proportions, and all three sets of his teeth are barred to you. He roars at you, loud and ringing, and your ears hurt with the force of the scream. Spit flies into your face and you can only helplessly whimper as he punches you in the gut.

You know that you’re dead right then and there. There is no way, absolutely no way, you could ever fight your moirail. Not even if he’s violently brainwashed, not even if Kankri overrode that with *more* violent brainwashing, not even if he’s going to kill you and then kill everyone else. It’s not truly him, for sure, and that brings you some comfort as you accept your future death in the span of microseconds.

You fall, accepting your defeat, your back hitting the rocky hill in a piercing thud. Goddess, you hope he’ll snap out of it at some point, get away from this shit. Maybe your dying wish will echo through the universe or something and some minor goddess will wake him up and you’ll be a sob story for some friendship-based cult. That would be awesome.

Gamzee, in his perfect, beautiful rage, winds up his juggling club. You hope he hits true, you hope he ends it soon, because you’re fucking heartbroken and want to get rid of it ASAP. And, as he brings it down, wailing out his useless chucklevoodoos at you like there’s no tomorrow, you realize he’s going to miss.

He shatters your left shin like it’s made of glass.

It buckles through the plate mail, through the leather and your thick skin, and wedges through blood and muscle and bone. It hurts surprisingly little, just a sharp shot of pain as he brings it down and through, but what gets to you is the sound. It’s this cracking, breaking noise, like someone is crumpling a large sheet of paper and about to throw it in the fucking waste bin.

He realizes he missed, and he tears it out of your leg. You feel it ripping, pulling, taking with it hunks of your flesh and muscle, leaving parts of your bone exposed to harsh air. It feels dry, empty, like licking the socket where a tooth used to be. Not so bad, honestly, you’re apparently a stone cold badass who doesn't feel pain. Or all your nerves are dead and you’re just apathetic because the love of your life is going to murder you, whatever. He’s still wailing his chucklevoodoos, directing them towards your wounded leg.

And… you start to feel them. They start to take effect on you, climbing up through the hole in your flesh and blood-cells and tendons like burning vines.

What in the actual fuck.

The first thing you feel is your nerves popping, one by one, down your foot and up your calf. It’s fucking odd, it’s like jumping into soda water, small-ass sparks of electricity lighting up and going dim in quick succession. It’s also slow, probably halted by your mutant blood, as it works its way up your leg. The second thing you notice is your skin *cracking,* and that’s working its way up you much faster than your nervous system slowly shitting itself.

You feel thick, bruising gorges carve their way up the left side of your body, all the way up your thigh and waist and arm and shoulder. They reach your face, and that actually hurts like fuck, your cheek splitting into deep cracks into your flesh. You feel your blood running out in little pools across your face like rancid acid.

You feel the dormant hemovessels in your iris burst too early. Your vision on half of your face goes red and painful. Oh god, oh shit, please let the Death gods come and personally take you up right fucking now, you literally don’t want a single second more of this. You can't take the pain, you can't take the hurt, you can't take Gamzee looking down at you like you're something to be eaten up and forgotten.

And just like that, the pain stops.

Stops cracking, stops popping nerves like grubsauce packets, stops everything. You feel your left side moving on it’s own, and you look at your arm, red sparks dancing across it and in the gouges your skin formed. Gamzee, in all his glory, also looks confused at this recent development, standing stock still and gaping at the colors. Which is understandable, because honestly, what the fuck is going on.

Your left side grabs the sickle you dropped to the side of you. Oh god, you know what’s going on, and you hate it. You hate it because you know what’s going to happen and it sucks literal ass. Your heart drops like you just threw yourself off a cliff.

“Kankri!” you yell, and half of your mouth decided to shit itself functionally so it comes out more like ‘Kenkree.’ “Kankri, stop! Fucking stop! Leave me alone!”

“I know killing a fellow troll is wrong, and I’m glad you’ve come to appreciate this, but I have weighed the costs and benefits-” your arm lifts your sickle, rotates the blade towards Gamzee, and thrusts. “-and this is for the good of the whole.”

Of course it cuts through, of course it sinks into his flesh like grubbutter, of course it slices through muscle and organs like they’re paper. Of course you kill your best friend in the whole fucking world. Your heart shatters along with his rib you hit with the blunt edge.

Kankri takes over the whole of your body, and he rolls you away before a very dead Gamzee can fall on top of you. He shifts control over to you when you’re free of danger, which feels weird as hell because while Kankri’s biomancy is providing you muscle and traction where you’re clearly lacking them in your leg, you can still sense that hollowness present in your lack of skin and muscle. It's weird to move those limbs while knowing these injuries are probably going to kill you when you're free of the red sparks from his biomancy. He’s keeping your blood stable as well, so you won’t bleed out like a stuck pig.

Sadness isn’t what greets you when you stand up for what is possibly the last time for at least a few perigrees. Loss isn’t what meets you when you draw your two remaining instruments of murder. Emptiness isn’t what fills your head when you face the backlog of shit eating clowns charging up the hill.

It’s rage.

You’re filled to the bursting point with pure, unyielding rage. Rage at these fucking clowns, rage at the empire for making you do this, rage at Kankri for not letting you just die there like you deserve. And you scream, you scream as loud as your tiny ass lungs can handle, you scream so that it echoes off the valley walls and hits the ears of every asshole within six miles.

You’re an efficient machination of murder.

And you are going to kill every one of these motherfuckers who stand in your way.


	20. Welcome to Cry Night, Motherfucker (part 2)

“I passed out for like, a fucking week after Kankri stopped biomancing me,” he says. “And then the empire wanted to cull me like a nibble vermin when I couldn’t heal to their sky high expectations. So I ran.”

You have _so_ many questions. So many. How does Kankri’s biomancy work? Can anyone do it? How can chucklevoodoos take hold when shot through the inside of Karkat? Does it travel through his bone? Does Karkat constantly feel that nerve-popping feeling he described or was it just a one-off? How long did it take his scars to heal up?

But you don’t ask any of those, because Karkat Vantas, throughout telling this whole story, has withdrawn into himself. As he spoke, you just watched him, very slowly, very gradually, hunch down so you can no longer see his face. You can feel him on the edge of bursting into tears. It hangs in the air like something crisp and raw.

You’re going to listen, no matter what.

“I couldn’t even go, I dunno, scavenge his corpse and go trucking across the globe to find a willing necromancer to bring him back. They burnt the whole area, just fucking blazed it into ashes, and all that remained were shitty pieces of metal clown memorabilia and horn matrices. I took his for safekeeping, as you’ve probably noticed.”

That makes you start. “Why would I have noticed?”

Karkat jerks his head up to give you a puffy, red-eyed glare. “Are you fucking serious right now? You seriously. Did not. Notice?”

“Um, no?”

Karkat grabs his cane next to him with a twitching lunge, then holds it out to you so the handle of it sticks right in your face. “See it now!?”

You have to cross your eyes to look at it, but you don’t see anything weird. It’s just a normal, wavy handle, painted orange and ye- Oh. _Oh_. Okay, that’s kind of ridiculous that you didn’t notice. It’s pretty obvious now that you look at it! You place your fingers against the inlaid horn on Karkat’s cane, pushing it gently out of your face. It’s softer and smoother than most troll horns, probably because Karkat’s been putting his weight on it for so long.

You give him a grin. “Your cane is so pretty, Karkat. I always thought so, and I never even noticed it was a part of your friend! I think it’s even more beautiful now. Isn’t it nice to have a memento of someone you care about?”

Karkat stares at you like you said something in a foreign language, before breaking out into a nervous smile. “I- hah- yeah. I didn’t… expect you to say that. Most humans wouldn’t think that way, they just don’t understand.”

That’s just silly! It’s a nice thing to do in remembrance of someone. Your family has done taxidermy forever, so you’re pretty sure you understand Karkat’s feelings on the matter. It’s probably even better if you turn them into a useful object! You can't say you've ever done that.

The corners of Karkat’s mouth twitch. “Isn’t it ironic? You should tell Dave about this excellent fucking joke, I’m sure he’d laugh so hard his thinkpan would gush out his hearholes. I mean, even *I* find it funny, and I’m a humorless nooksnot.”

Karkat looks like he’s about to crack in two and you’re afraid of taking a step to prevent it. “I don’t get it.”

He states the word “Ha,” then says, with tears building up behind his voice, “It’s ironic that the guy who gave me this limp is also the one helping me walk.”

You don’t find that very funny, but then again, you don’t think Karkat does either. You stay silent as Karkat keeps rambling, warbley and unrelenting.

“I miss him an incredible amount. And it’s this deep, retching mess, like my bloodpusher is going to crawl up and birth itself out of my grubchute while ripping me in two every time I think about him. It doesn’t help that I have a permanent reminder of how badly I fucked up that day. I can barely feel *shit* on my left side, up to here-”

He places his hand around where his navel would be if he was human. All the way up to his waist? Wow, that’s intense.

“-and I can’t take a fucking step by myself for fear of shooting those chucklevoodoo remnants he’s gifted me with all the way up to my thinkpan. Half my thoughtsack would go dark, instantly. It’s frustrating. It’s the most frustrating thing I’ve ever had to deal with in my whole pitiful lifespan, and that includes the ‘mutant troll blood’ thing, which is a terrible second level of frustration I am not prepared to even touch tonight.

“Oh, and while we’re at it, did you know I did a flip-heel-turn on the ‘hating myself’ thing for a while? I remember you calling me out on all that bullshit back in the day, and rightfully so, but I turned into something worse. Something unfathomably worse after I killed him-- I felt *sorry* for myself. I flipped my own fucking masturbatory quadrant from black to red, and that’s had some lasting consequences I’ve had to deal with for a long time. For a few shit-awful perigrees I was probably my own matesprit, and if that isn’t the saddest plot twist you’ve ever heard you need to get out more.”

He pauses, trying to take a deep breath, but it comes out scratchy and strangled. “But… I got over it. I grew. That’s something I’m proud of. That’s an accomplishment I would hang on the icebox: Karkat Vantas- After 12 sweeps of living, finally somewhat self-confident despite being a bitter, crusty troll. Managed to make it out the same way he got in, through over analysis and a hell of a lot of bitching.”

He looks almost relieved as he’s telling you this, like you’re hefting a weight off his shoulders. You wonder if he’s told anyone else this stuff… You suppose he hasn’t. You’re so glad you’re helping him just by listening.

But then, in the span of a few seconds of silence, his face scrunches up, his mouth opens, and he lets out a violent, strangling sob.

“But who fucking gives a shit,” he says, sounding like someone drowning. “ _< Because Gamzee isn’t here to share that joy with me._ >”

Big, goopy red tears start to come out from his eyes, and he tries to cover them up with his hands, but they keep falling and trailing out and spattering on his lap. He tries to keep his sobs down, he tries to keep his shoulders from heaving like an earthquake, but it only serves to make them more obvious. His voice, coming out in choked strangles, is muffled by the weight of tragedy.

Oh no!!! No!!! You don’t want him to be sad!!! What are you supposed to do!!! You can’t just sit here! You have do to do something for him! Karkat looks like he’s dissolving away and you don’t know what to do. How do you comfort an emotionally vulnerable troll?

Oh, you know how. You hope it’s appropriate in this situation.

He doesn’t notice you reach your hands out towards him, so you say, “ _< Let me know if this makes you uncomfortable, okay?  >_”

Karkat lowers his hands, and stares blearily at you, tears welling up and dropping in big bubbles. His eyes are already so puffy and red and his scrunched up face is stained with the same color. Karkat’s the ugliest crier you’ve ever seen. He’s perfect in every way.

It’s only natural at this point to pull him into a hug.

You hug him so that he’s a little angled to the side, his head ending up resting on your collarbone, chest tight to your own. He follows your pull gently, unresisting, warm and wet against you. You pap him quietly on the back and say, “Shoosh.”

Karkat replies to this incredibly meekly, continuing to cry into your shoulder. “You’re doing this wrong, I’m… I’m supposed to be comforting *you,* not… not the other way around.”

You rub his shoulder anyway. He shudders underneath your touch, like a cat when you pet them in a nice spot. “Shhhhooohhhshh.”

He sighs into you, nestling his face into your collarbone. “This is so taboo,” he says, through muffled fabric. He wraps his arms around your waist, clinging to you tighter than you’ve ever felt him grab. “This is sick and wrong. I... I can't believe I...”

You’re not sure what to do next. How far do moirails go with each other? You nervously unwrap one of your arms from the hug, and glide your hand up his back, up his neck, and gently start to run your fingers through his hair. It feels… good. It feels good to touch him like this. You hope he’s feeling the same way.

“ _< Karkat…_ >” you say, trying to keep your voice quiet. It’s hard because your heart is pounding so fast! “< _Has anyone ever done this to you?_ >”

“No, I was… Always on the other end…” he clutches at the fabric on your back. “This is my first time. Keep… _< keep doing that, please._ >”

Holy shit, he did not just say that. He did not just say that like you were gently making love to him. You have to bite your lip to keep from screaming out a weird sort of repression.

His hair is thick and smooth, gliding through your fingers like liquid. You expected him to have a lot of tangles, but apparently the mass on his head is sheer piles of hair, which is impressive. You tuck a strand behind his ear.

“Oh, Karkat!” you say, before remembering to keep your voice quiet. You switch to Alternian again, and try to purr your r's a bit more. “ _< You have your ears pierced. I like them. I never see your ears._ >”

Karkat makes an “mmmm” sound into your shoulder, which sends shivers all the way up and down your spine. He starts talking sleepily, like his mouth is too lazy to catch up with his thoughts. “That’s because listening is considered a sign of weakness, so most trolls cover them up.”

“Sorry, I’ll put your hair back then…”

“No, it’s okay. It’s just you. I’ll listen to you.”

Something lights up inside you. _Oh no, he’s cute_. Wait, what was that? Jade, don’t let your weird feelings stop you! Karkat likes this and you’re going to keep going!

Your shoulder is either so soaked you can no longer feel any new tear additions, or Karkat’s stopped crying. He’s not shuddering anymore (although you are making him shiver just _so nicely_ when you stroke the back of his neck like this), almost entirely focused on what you’re doing to him. You must be doing something right. Oh my gods, what if you’re like, some kind of pale Casanova!? That would be hilarious.

You make your hand up to his horns. You think moirails are supposed to do stuff with horns? You’re not sure why, there aren’t a lot of nerves in them, and they don’t really serve a purpose besides for providing a small benefit to balance. You might as well try it, right? You run a finger around the base of his horn, and then gently close your hand around it.

Karkat _moans_. That sound goes all the way down to your hips in ways that you really weren’t prepared for. He says with a weak voice, “You’re not supposed to do that on a first papping.”

You take your hand off quickly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

“No… I… I like it. I like it so much.” He nuzzles into your shoulder. “Please. More.”

That makes you feel giddy. Is this… Is this like having sex on the first date? You’re so down with sex on the first date! Especially with Karkat.

Wait, what did you just think right there? No, no no no. You can’t be… You can’t… Ugh, stop thinking about it! This isn’t about you right now, this is about Karkat. You’re going to make him feel good.

You twirl your finger around the base of each horn, unwinding and winding and smooshing his hair out against his head. You slick your palm along the outside of his horns, giving them a few strokes, and you feel Karkat’s breathing getting softer and softer.

You slowly, carefully, lean backwards. You use your gigantic abs to make it a smooth journey to the bedroll, and don’t stop the descent until you feel the blanket beneath your back. You settle in around him, wrapping your arms around his back as he sprawls out on top of you.

And for the very first time since you’ve met him, Karkat Vantas falls asleep before you. Which is good because if he were awake, the way your heart is pounding might tip him off to something. Something he might not like.

As you lay there, in a position which would never ever be misconstrued as two BFFS just sleeping together if you were both human, you come to a realization. As Karkat is literally planted face-down in your cleavage, as his arm is slung so comfortably under your neck, as your palms sit so perfectly against his back, as you decide you fucking fit together like pieces of a puzzle, it hits you. It hits you like a speeding wagon filled with bricks. It hits you harder than anything you’ve ever been steamrollered with in your life.

You think about how close he is. You think about how his breath is so quiet and so unlike his normal, gorgeous, accented voice. You think about how his incredibly soft hair always tends to bounce around when he argues with you or talks with you or touches your cheek. You think about how he smells just faintly like baked cinnamon cookies and sunshine and sweat and everything else good and pure and right.

You realize something.

You realize you have the hugest, biggest crush on Karkat Vantas.

And then you realize something even worse than that, something that hits you like a bucket of ice water. You think about how close he’s going to get now that you’re moirails. You think about all the ways he’s going to touch and pap and whisper to you. You think about how that closeness is going to torture you, now that you’re not able to bridge that gap into a normal romance. You think about how you’ve made a terrible mistake, how you’ve done the worst possible thing you could ever do:

You just pale-zoned yourself.


	21. Just Go Dump Some Icewater on Your Head

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This chapter is semi-nsfw (with a picture to match!)**

The next week is pain incarnate, as you deal with Karkat Vantas slowly, lovingly, sweetly, touching the fuck out of you.

You think really hard about giving up, you think about just pushing his hand aside one night as he draws on your face with sickeningly tender strokes and telling him ‘I can’t do this anymore!’ but then he cups your cheek when he’s done or bites his lip with a satisfied smile and you _melt_. You fall into warm, fuzzy pieces and pick yourself back up so you can feel that again the next night.

You don’t know if this is okay or not. On one hand, you can tell that he needs this, that he knows it’s a one night stand sort of thing, that he knows you enjoy it too and continues because of a mutual agreement. On the other, you are definitely not enjoying this moirail thing in the same way he’s enjoying it, and he isn’t aware of that.

At least his demeanor doesn’t change towards you. He’s still the same old Karkat, with the same fun banter and the same silly arguments and the same lovely vocal range that twists and turns like a disused road. It’s just when he gets close, when he draws on your face, that you can really tell that you’re in a quadrant with him. He's so warm when he does it, his breath on your cheek, his legs interlocked with yours and your arms resting on his shoulders like you're dancing at three in the morning. It's so fucking intimate you could tear your hair out, because you know he's not feeling the same thing.

It’s bearable, though. You know, as bearable as you can get being within kissing distance of a really amazing person but unable to bridge that gap. What can you say? You’re a grab-and-go kind of gal.

But then you have a dream.

You’re camped out just on the edge of the forest when it happens, only two weeks away from Hgothrar. You had snuggled in your blankets against the chill spring air like usual, and fallen asleep like every other night. But this dream, this dream is different. This dream is _good_.

You know you’re dreaming because you’re wearing that silly yellow princess dress that you always wear when you’re asleep and because your imagination apparently decided Karkat has a perfectly crafted human cock he is about to make excellent use of. Which you know would not be accurate in real life because 1. He’s Karkat. 2. He’s got a bulge. 3. He’s probably not very good at sexing up humans due to those two items.

Apparently your brain can’t reconcile that someone you have a crush on doesn’t have human genitalia. Although why didn’t it give Karkat a vagina or whatever??? You’d be mildly upset at your brain for the stereotypical dick-inside-pussy shtick if it wasn’t. So. Good.

Well, it’s going to turn out good, anyway. Your imagination hasn’t quite caught up to ‘having the full sex’ stage of a wet dream yet. Sweet! Time to enjoy the ride. Your innocent, vanilla, Karkat-themed sex dream.

Oh _yeah_ , really innocent. To be fair, usually your sex dreams involve tentacles and more people. WAY more people.

Your mind is fogged by the blur of sleep, so you can’t really pick out what’s happening. But certain things stand out to you. The smoothness of his back as you claw under his shirt, the slight shake of your legs as you try to keep up, how slick with sweat certain areas of your bodies are as you glide against him… Oh, yes, the good stuff. The little things.

And of course, just as you’re getting into it, you wake up.

Oh Lord.

Your eyes flicker open to the chill night air and the crushing burden of blood pumping in places you’ve ignored for far too long. You come to the startling and terrible realization that you haven’t had any ‘alone time’ since you’ve started this adventure two months ago. Karkat has never been asleep when you’re awake, minus one time when he was literally on top of you, and it’s starting to rear its ugly head.

And the really upsetting thing _right now_ is that you’re uncomfortably aroused and there’s literally nothing you can do about it. You would bet real money that Karkat’s awake right now even though it’s the middle of the night.

There’s no cold water to splash on your face. Exercise is out of the question, as Karkat would be really confused as to why you’re running laps around the plains at midnight and you would not be able to think of a convincing lie to cover that. You briefly debate to just fucking touch yourself and hope he doesn’t look over at you-slash-notice, but decide that would be a little too morally bankrupt and squicky for you. You're not that desperate, yet. Ugh, maybe you should just slap yourself in the face until you snap out of it. Yeah, there’s an idea.

You reach a hand out from under the warmth of your blankets to grab your glasses. You plunk them on your nose, and sit up blearily to see the glowing warmth of the fire with Karkat nearby reading a book, snuggled up under some blankets. You’d normally think it was really cute… except he’s looking at you with a face made of pure, abject horror. Oh no. Oh no, you made noise, didn't you. Oh no. Oh no, you can’t tell him.

“What the HELL were you dreaming about?” he says, dripping with tense rage.

“Wrestling.” You say immediately, in possibly the most deadpan voice you’ve ever spoken with. Dave would be proud.

“Really.”

“Yeah.”

Karkat draws his head back, suspiciously. “So, why the fuck did you name drop me, then?”

Shit, shit, shit. What did you say? Maybe it was just his name, maybe you can keep the little tiny white lie going. You can do this Jade, you can weave this tangled web. “Um, because I was wrestling… you?”

Karkat’s face returns to its normal angry state in an apparent acceptance of your dream. Whew. You cleared that hurdle. “That was an insane amount of screaming for a dream about grappling. Who ended up winning?” he asks.

You think about this. “I guess I won.”

“You can tell it was a dream then, because in real life I’d end up on top.”

You can’t stop the look of total shock that screws up your facial features. Is this happening right now??? Is this really happening??? You’re too weirded out to not keep it going. “I dunno, I’ve had a lot of… manhandling experience… in my life. I’m dominant kind of person.”

“Excuse you, remember what happened last time we fought? I really put you into submission.”

“No way! That didn’t count. My skills in the bedddd-” Shit, shit, shit, you have to recover. “-dttlefield are unmatched.”

He has to notice! How can he not notice you're having this weird, multi-layered conversation? But he doesn’t look like he’s connecting the dots, he just looks like he wants to check you for a fever. “Alright, asshole, let’s make one thing clear. I make excellent use of my assets when needed, and I could top you any day. I’ll prove it to you in great detail anytime you want to be fucked over so hard, so efficiently, and so completely, you’ll be begging me to continue.”

This is it. This is the end. This is how you die. With Karkat Vantas making bad, completely unintentional innuendos at you while your head still buzzes with the hormones from a wet dream. You can’t take this.

“ _I need to go back to bed!!!!_ ” you yell, and drop down under the covers like you’re on fire and need to put it out immediately. You put the blankets over your head and try to hide from the world.

Only two more weeks. Only two more weeks. Only two more weeks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Important Update!**
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> Chapter updates will now slow down (one per week-ish) until around January, due to NaNoWriMo and gift exchanges.


	22. Hello, Nurse

You’re cranky the whole morning. You figured it would eventually go away, all that pent up sexual aggression from a silly dream, but it’s only getting worse as you drive Halley down the forest path. You try to distract yourself with your surroundings, since this should be all new and exciting after traveling through endless fields for like two months, but all you see are endless tangles of boring deciduous trees. The forest doesn’t get interesting until Odette, anyways, but thankfully that’s only a day or so away.

Maybe you could get your own room in Odette? No, ugh, that would be WAY too suspicious! GODDESS, why isn’t this STUPID horniness going away!!! You are so MAD you could PUNCH-

You don’t have to finish the thought before you know what’s wrong. You switch the reigns over to one hand and pull off your glove with your teeth. Little splotches of gray are all over your fingers and knuckles.

Okay, whatever, you can handle this. Just distract yourself. Start a conversation with Karkat. You think he’s reading back there, since only one of his arms is looped around you. All you have to do is open your mouth and say-

You become hyper aware of his arm resting against your waist, the side of his hand barely touching the top of your thigh, the leather of his bracer rubbing against the cloth of your dress, his own legs encircling yours with a delicate closeness that causes some very impure thoughts to bound around your head…

“Shit, Jade, are you okay? You’re turning gray. You need me to calm you down?”

Ugh, he must have noticed your gloveless hand. Images of Karkat flood into your head of him attempting to shoosh pap you into submission, his palms pressing gently against your cheeks, his face so close to yours, your legs so entwined you could burst into intercourse at any moment… Okay, maybe that last one isn’t super realistic but needless to say, you’re pretty sure some close physical contact is the last thing you need to make this curse go away.

“Nope! No!” you say, a bit too forcefully. “I’m TOTALLY FINE. Ha. Ha.”

He drums his fingers against your leg. Oh GOD. “Might I remind you that because I am possibly the only mortal being on this planet who can at least attempt to alleviate your burdens, I need to understand the goddamn problem.”

This is getting out of hand, and you really don’t want to go grimbark again. You would hate to see a hormonal grimbark version of yourself. You HAVE to put a stop to this, even if it means embarrassing yourself. Karkat will understand! And it’s less weird now that you’re in a forest and there’s stuff to hide behind, right? You pull the reigns on Halley, scoot viscously away from Karkat, and hop off your mount.

“Jade! Tell me what’s wrong!”

“I WANT TO BE MORE THAN MOIRAILS!” you yell, turning to face him. That… was not what you meant to say at all. Oh, no, why did you just say that??? This is it, this is the worst curse ever. You’re going to die. You’re going to just dissolve into ashes out of sheer embarrassment.

Karkat does not share your pain, instead choosing to raise an eyebrow. “I don’t get it.”

Um, what? You thought that was pretty clear. “How do you not get it?”

He doesn’t get off Halley, choosing to fold his arms and look displeased. “There isn’t anything *more* than moirails. That’s the highest level of romance you can get in that quadrant. Unless you want to be moirails forever, in which case, uh, as much as I enjoy your pale company, I really don’t think you’ll need that kind of shit after we cure you.”

“Oh, no, I didn’t mean… um, nevermind.” Whew, okay, thank goddesses for troll/human cultural barriers. Otherwise you’d be fucked. You slide a hand through your hair and try to look casual. “Listen, Karkat, it’s nice of you to offer to pacify me, but I think I just need some, um, alone time to calm me down… Would you go somewhere else for ten or fifteen minutes? I’ll come get you when I’ve returned to normal.”

“What? Why? Do you not need me anymore?” He looks hurt. Oh no, you don’t like that.

You sigh, give your temples a brief rub, and try to say as calmly and nicely as you can while part-grimbark, “Karkat, while I would love to have your help literally any other time, this is a special case. I need to take care of this BY MYSELF, otherwise you would do more harm than good! I promise, it’s all on me, and you are so welcome to pap me all you want whenever else! I just need a little bit of alone time.”

Karkat’s face gets less sad-displeased and more default-state-of-Karat-displeased. Good. “Okay, I guess. I’ll just wait around here like a total fucking bum while you go do your mystery activity to relieve your grimbarkness, whatever it—”

You watch Karkat go still. Incredibly still, like if he moved something would leap out of the bushes and attack him. His eyes open wide in horrible suspicion, and you watch comprehension hit him like a blunderbuss shot to the back. You press your hand to your forehead in embarrassment as he turns to you, opens his mouth, and says—

Well, you don’t hear what he says, because a bunch of highway thieves start falling out of the trees.

Karkat, to his credit, recovers immediately and whips around to face the larger group of bandits. You scooch behind him and stand back-to-back to cover all your bases. Halley doesn’t react, continuing to munch on some grass on the side of the path as a random thief steps gingerly around him. You guess they’re okay with animals?

On your side, you can see about ten surrounding you in an arc. You assume that on Karkat’s side he’s got about the same amount, which means you two will be facing down twenty or so enemies. That’s so easy! You could do that in your sleep! You close your eyes in a brief flash to dead-sense if there’s anything huge waiting for you under the earth, but it looks like you’re all in the clear. No skeleton army waiting for you or anything. You’ll be safe from full grimbarkness if you need to use your necromancy, which is good.

"You know, I was wondering when we'd have a random encounter with some generic bandits, I'd say it's long past fucking due." says Karkat, drawing his larger sickle-slash-scimitar-thing from the scabbard on his waist. 

A deeper voice resounds from behind you, addressing Karkat. “Hey… we’re not just generic bandits, you know. We’re the Koccari division of the Rouges.”

You risk a glance behind you, over Karkat’s shoulder, and get a quick look of who’s talking. He’s a troll, clad in a baby blue bandit outfit with a red and black spiky hairstyle. He’s also got a set of brown fairy wings jutting out of his back, which is kind of weird. Either way, he definitely stands out, so he’s probably the leader.

You turn back to face your side, and say, “I thought we left all the Rogues behind in the Cammor area?”

“Sorry, doll,” says fairy troll. “You’ve wandered into one of our bigger territories. And we usually don’t do this kind of, like, shady bandit stuff unless if you’re a super rich douchebag since our leader doesn’t like it, but you guys are clearly evil. We gotta take you down for justice and goodness and stuff.”

“How in the acid spewing mouthholes are we evil? You are so getting this sword wedged up your asshole.” yells Karkat.

“If you think we’re evil then I am going to FUCK YOU UP!” you yell, feeling a quick rush of grimbarkness.

You hear fairy troll sigh, then say, “I mean, sorry, point proven… Um, okay guys, you can attack them now. Don’t kill the dog please, he looks pretty nice.”

You sling out your blunderbuss as you feel Karkat tense up for battle readiness. “There aren’t any Death temples until you hit Porkmor-Kahn,” you whisper. “So hurt them or knock them out if you can. Otherwise they'll probably be too rotten to resurrect by the time the Rogues get the bodies there.”

“Got it.” says Karkat, re-sheathing his scimitar and unhooking it with the scabbard from his belt.

The Rouges all raise their crossbows, and fire at the two of you in a coordinated strike. You raise your hand, feel the metaphorical weight of the dead earth inside your palm, and pull up, making a gesture around you in a half circle. A wall of earth comes shooting up in a round cliff around you and Karkat, catching every bolt as your makeshift shield rises and falls.

As soon as you’re clear, you aim your blunderbuss dead ahead and shoot. The crossbow of a Rogue comes flying out of her hands, smacking into her forehead and knocking her completely out. Okay, cool, one down and it was pretty easy. You feel Karkat leave your back, zooming away somewhere, and you raise a wall of earth in front of you for a blockade and turn to where he’s going. You’ve always wanted to do some partner combat with him!

Karkat’s already gotten to the fairy troll, and is currently in the midst of sparring with him. You’re not sure why the heck Karkat chose to take out the boss before the other weak randos, but fuck if you’re not going to help him. You see three on your left wind up another set of bolts to take Karkat down, and one by one you tap into the metal of their bows, and yank them out of their hands.

Karkat ducks a punch from fairy troll, hooks his sheathed scimitar around the guy’s waist, and pulls. Fairy troll spins around, and Karkat plunges his cane straight into the gut of his combatant. The fairy guy makes a stomach-retching heave you can hear from where you are, then falls in a flutter of pixie dust.

Karkat dives to the right while you take care of the three on the left. A dead tree lies in front of them, and you call to it and push it into the group. It bowls them over, trapping them beneath its heavy trunk. Score for you!

You raise two earthen walls on either side of Karkat to protect him as he takes out two Rogues positioned close together, then aim and blunderbuss a different one, currently gawking at your necromancy powers. You get him at the same angle you got the first girl with, knocking his crossbow straight into his skull and rendering him unconscious.

You spin around, lowering your defense that you had to prevent sneak attacks, and send rivulets of earth careening towards the stragglers who didn’t edge around towards the front. It knocks two of them off the ground, and you immediately raise the earth around them up to bury their arms and keep them stuck there. Awesome!

You flip around again, wielding your blunderbuss, aiming at one about to crossbow Karkat, and-

You get hit.

You completely freeze up, and look down at your collarbone. A bolt has shot through your right shoulder with a clean break, sending none of your blood or innards flying out of it. There’s just a plain metal pole sticking straight out of the fleshy area under your clavicle. It doesn’t hurt at all, but you can’t do anything about it because you’re so stunned you got hit. You’re Jade Harley! You NEVER get hit! Ever! How the fuck did you get hit!?

You feel another one embed itself in the leathers of your waist on the opposite side, and it must go through your armor because you feel it break skin with a sharp electric shot. Your back starts to pulse with thick beats of hurt. Oh, ouch, you have GOT to take care of this before the real pain sets in! 

You spin to where the crossbow shots came from, knock up your blunderbuss while avoiding the bolt sticking through your collarbone, ignore the flash of pain that comes with it, and fire. Your shot sends a tree branch barreling down onto your opponent, which gives you a little twinge of excitement from pulling that maneuver off even while injured. But… something feels weird. Your arm is kind of numb.

You lower your blunderbuss, and your shoulder makes a dry noise that echoes throughout your insides. ‘Plunk.’

You start to scream in horrible realization, your emotions betraying the logical part of your brain telling you to hold it all in. You misaligned your gun to avoid pushing the bolt further into you, and that was possibly the worst mistake you could have made. Seriously, you fucked up so badly you should get all of your firearms taken away for at least five years. The force from the shot, instead of ending up comfortably in your very prepared upper body muscles, ended up dislocating your shoulder.

You’d be surprised if your arm is still in its socket. 

Your ears start to ring, your vision starts to spin, and finally, finally, the pain sets in. 

It’s god-awful, it’s the worst thing you’ve ever felt. Every harsh breath you take moves your muscles up and down and sends tendons of sharpened saws ripping through your veins, searing your insides and melting every little nerve on your upper body. You wheeze and choke on nothing, the pain tightening your abdomen so bad you think you might throw up. Oh, god, you can’t do this here, you can’t freeze up like this.

Karkat yells something, and your mind barely registers to sink to your knees as a sickle flies over your head, embedding itself in the chest of a Rogue about to machete you. You try to grab at your injured shoulder, try to relieve some of the pain, try to do _anything_ , but you can barely move your mobile arm without the bolt in your back digging in further. Numbness shoots up your popped out arm, only serving to amplify the sheer amount of hurt echoing through you. Blood from the wound on your collarbone starts to drip onto your lap in hot pools, trickling down your tucked in legs. Fuck. Oh, fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.

You have to pull yourself together! You have to. You have to help Karkat, you can’t just sit here and be useless. You don’t know what he’s doing, since your eyes are locked hazily on the ground, but he might be in trouble and you’re being USELESS! You’re a totally weak ball of pain and _you need to get up_. 

You plant your usable arm on the ground, ignore the shock of paralyzing hurt that waves through your lower back, and try to push yourself up.

“Jade Harley, I swear to every fucking deity that’s listening, if you so much as move *one centimeter-*” you hear something metallic and wet. “-I will personally slaughter you viscously and without forgiveness.”

Karkat sounds harsh and uncaring, and you’re too freaked out by it to do anything but follow his instructions. As you listen to the battle around you, as your good arm slowly gives out, as you faceplant into the dirt and accidentally push the bolt in your collarbone a little bit backwards through your chest, as you scream and taste gross-ass blood covered earth, you do something that you haven’t done since you were twelve years old: you think a small prayer to your patron goddess. ‘ _\--Lady, please dear fucking shit make sure Karkat will be alright or I’ll be really sad amen fuck fuck fucking--_ ’

You’re not sure how much time passes, but eventually, things go still around you. You can’t tell what’s happening, all your senses blocked by sharp and vibrating pain, but you don’t have to question too long because you feel Karkat’s hand against your waist. You guess he won.

“Don’t worry, I’m a doctor,” he says, panicked. “Don’t even fucking fret for two seconds, because even though I’ve never done battlefield first aid on a human before, I technically know how to do this. I got a C on the test at Seer Seminary. That’s passing, right? Remarkably fucking average? Average will keep you alive until we get you to a healer, right? Oh gods.”

Holy shit, you forgot he was a doctor. Well, you’re not scared if you’re in Karkat’s hands. 

“I-trust-you.” You heave out, in one quick breath. Even that little thing causes pain to shoot up your front, and you lurch into the dirt in automatic response.

“I- Okay.” He gives your able hand a squeeze. The tone of voice he switches to is clear and strong, even against your pain. “You’re not going to die. I promise.”

He removes his hand from yours, then wraps it around your uninjured shoulder. He wedges his other hand between your chest and the ground. “I’m going to sit you up. Don’t fight it or you’ll bleed out like a aquatic slitherer stuck in a hook.”

He presses you up, slowly, from your core, and oh goddess you know what he meant. It hurts everything, like you’re being stretched out in one of those torture machines, and big gobs of blood trickle out of your clavicle wound as he does so. You end up on your knees, trying not to fall forward again, as you feel a big wad of something tightly press itself against the wound in your back. You think it might be Karkat’s knee pinning bunched up cloth against you, and the pain that comes from the pressure is dull and roiling.

Karkat presses both his hands against your injured shoulder, one holding some bunched up fabric or bandages, and the other keeping the wad in a death grip around the bolt through your collarbone. You can’t help the whimper that is pushed out of your mouth by the onslaught of hurt.

"It's a good thing these are plain, boring-ass bolts, no poison on the tips." says Karkat, gently. “How many hours until we get to Odette?” 

“Ten.” you whisper, your voice shaking with the effort of keeping your breaths normal.

“Shit. What happens if your barkbeast nocks the speed up to blazingly fuck-fast.”

“Five.” You hope he can infer you mean ‘five hours,’ you don’t want to say words right now.

Karkat swears under his breath, which must mean that’s really bad, because Karkat has never swore under his breath the whole time you’ve known the guy. “Well, hate to say this, but your arm might fall off later if we don’t do some emergency massaging. Not a problem, I’m Karkat Vantas and I can fucking multitask.”

Karkat keeps his death grip around the bandages and bolt on your shoulder as he takes his free hand and gently wedges his thumb around your upper bicep. You hiss in pain as he whispers, “Shoosh, shooosh, you’re doing okay,” into your ear. 

Karkat slowly, painfully, starts to relax the muscles around your arm and shoulder. He takes his time, making sure you’re not getting severely hurt, and occasionally tells you to move the blade of your shoulder backwards. Whenever you do that, it makes tears burst out of the corners of your eyes, but it gets easier and easier the more you do it.

When he finally removes his hand from your arm, you feel much, much better. You also feel incredibly woozy, which might be from the blood loss. How much blood did you lose, anyway? You have no idea. You feel light, like you’re going to slip into a good sleep. 

Your vision is hazy, and your head lolls forward without extra Karkat support around your arm. He’s wrapping a bandage or something really tight around where he’s keeping pressure on your bolt wounds with his knee and hand, and when he’s done, he slips around to the front of you and rocks you forward into his arms.

Karkat whistles over your head, two short ones, and you hear Halley’s paws patter against the ground behind you. Karkat stands up, and you feel yourself being picked up with him, as he hefts you over his stronger side. You feel yourself shift in Karkat’s arms as he swings his leg over Halley. You’re impressed with how he’s able to handle your weight on just one side, but you can’t really say so because your mouth feels slow and sleepy. You feel like you’re in a dream world, like your brain can’t react fast enough to everything around you.

Karkat positions you in his lap so you’re softly nestled between his arms, your head in the crook of his neck, as he grasps the reigns. He puts something heavy over your front, under the bolt still jutting out of your collarbone. His coat? You feel something move beneath you, and some slow logical process in your brain goes ‘oh yeah, I guess Halley’s standing up now.’ Wow, you sure are slow. Maybe because you’re so sleepy and pulsing with a still sort of soreness.

You start to bounce with the movement of Halley and you gasp as the bolts painfully dig further into you. Your gasp comes out as kind of gargley and icky so you follow it up with a cough. That hurts a lot.

“Oh, shit.” says Karkat. He sounds so far away. “You’re worse than I thought.”

You feel Karkat’s thighs shift and the bouncing gets smoother. Oh, you’re still moving. You must be going really fast if it’s so smooth like this! Or maybe you’re going really slow… It’s hard to tell, your vision isn’t very clear. Maybe if you open your eyes wider… No, that doesn’t help, all you see is Karkat’s collarbone.

“Hey, Jade, stay with me. I can guaren-fucking-tee there isn’t a single necromancer in a-” your hearing slips away for a second and you have to concentrate really hard to get it back. “-Don’t die or you’re screwed six ways to bulgetown. I mean, I’d literally battle through hell itself to get you back, but-”

He sounds… you can’t quite tell. Worried? Like he’s about to cry? Karkat is such a silly worrier, you’ll be fine. You can always resurrect yourse- wait, no you can’t. That’s not how it works.

Oh, Karkat’s still talking. “-healer. They would have a healer, right? What kind of town wouldn’t have a healer? They’d better-”

He trails off. Or maybe you trail off. You’re sleepy. And Karkat’s greatcoat is so warm and you fit just perfectly against his shoulder. Everything feels kind of dull and throbbing and floaty… but something really sticks out to you in your dreamworld.

“You smell so good, Karkat.” you say. Your chest hurts to say it, but it’s worth it. “You smell like sunshine and cinnamon… and also kind of sweaty.”

“What? Jade, I can’t hear you.”

Did he not understand you? Maybe you should phrase it differently… Before you fall asleep.

“I like… Your weirdo troll pheromone smell.”

You close your eyes in the silence that follows. Karkat’s voice starts to get farther and farther away.

“What the fuck. I can’t believe you just said that. You really are-”

You don’t hear the rest.


	23. Odette

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a sfw pic that features Jade's boob in this chapter. Just FYI in case your conservative, anti-nudity grandmother is reading over your shoulder or something.

Things pass by in a blur. You’re clearly being transported somewhere, and you’re clearly being picked up and set down in random places, and Karkat is clearly yelling _something_ at _somebody_ at all times, but it’s all this woozy mess that you can’t make heads or tails of. The only thing that’s constant is the awful, awful pain that throbs all the way down your back and the way it hurts when Karkat holds you over his shoulder. His hands, no matter where he grabs you, are these terrible spots of flaming ache. It’s even worse when he sets you down though, since when that happens everything becomes a terrible spot of flaming ache.

And then, your face becomes a spot of flaming ache when Karkat slaps you.

“Ow… w-what?” you say. Oh sweet goddess your throat hurts. You are going to refrain from talking from now until forever.

“Thank the fucking Lord, you’re lucid. I said, how many shots of whiskey can you take before you empty the contents of your digestive sac!?”

Did you hear that right? You try to clear your eyes by blinking, but it just seems to make things darker and hazier. Do you have your glasses on? You can’t see Karkat at all, and you have absolutely no idea where you are.

“Hey, Jade, c’mon, I know you’re in there. And I know you can probably drink me under the table by an absurd amount so I can’t just guess at this. How many shots?”

Apparently you did hear what he said correctly. You really want to ask ‘why’ but opt out of it for the benefit of not having to talk more. It’s been a long time, and you probably have an empty stomach, so you say, “Eight.”

“Holy fucking shit, really? Wow. I am in awe of your strong will and virulent constitution. I’m tilting your head back.”

He is? You can’t feel yourself moving at all. You are a big ball of pain and darkness and it hurts too much to comprehend what you’re doing. You can feel something cool press itself to your lips. And then that starts burning too.

Even in your delirium you realize that this is the shittiest bootlegged moonshine that has ever been made in the history of time. Where did he even get this? Why is he making you drink this? It’s horrendous! The only thing that stops you from spitting it straight out is the awareness of the pain that would result from going through with that motion.

When he finally pulls it away, your mouth tastes so bad it actually stands out against that ever-present hurt. It tastes like you just ate some ancient gym socks.

“Shit, sorry,” says Karkat. “They wouldn’t—” your vision flashes black for a second, then you come back. Did he pick you up again? “— no healer, nothing better—” Your hearing keeps going out, it’s distracting. “—hate trolls—” Are you going up stairs? “—no chloroform—” Your cheek hits something soft. A blanket? “— into shock, you and your weak human pain receptors.”

“Where… going?” you slur. Your mouth seems sloppier, it hurts less to use your voice. Is the alcohol kicking in already? How long has it been since you drank it?

“Right here, I’m going to have to take off your—” “—sorry about—” “—are you drunk enough to—”

You’re not sure what’s going on but you hope it doesn’t mean he’s taking off your clothes. You try to swat him away but you’ve got no idea where he is and you also can’t move your arm. Also, you’re lying face down now? How did that happen? Things are spinning and everything is dark and you think you might be feeling just a little bit tipsy! Or at least, not in as much pain, which is always good.

“Jade, can you hear me? I’m going to take the first one out. Scream bloody murder if it hurts.”

Oh? You must be really slow! He’s taking out the arrows? What happened… to the heeaaaaller? Do they not have? A healer? You are going to be soooooooooo fucked! When you get out of here!

Haha, you think you might be, a little bit off! Whoops. Oh well, Karkat totalllllyyy knows what he’s doing! And you can’t even feel a thing! He must have got the good stuff!!

Actually it’s soooooooooo good that you think you might just… pass out! It’s okay though, you’re sure Karkat can handle! Everything! By himself! You wonder how he can even, like, operate when it’s soooooooo blurry and sooooo dark! You can’t even hear him anymore? You wonder if he’s even talking? Haha, probably, that boy is allllwwaaayyyss talking!

You might not be able to hear him…………… but you do hear………… something yucky, like paper ripping. You wonder what it is? It was so! Wet sounding! And something is dull, icky pain, like popping a blister, in your back. You feel like you should be really hurting right now? But you’re not! You’re just… drunk!

But all you really want to do is just, go to sleep. It’s so easy? Right now! All you have to do is just clooooossee yoouuurr eyeeeessss

And fall asleep.

**********

You open your eyes.

You’re on some pillows, on a bed, on your stomach, without your glasses. White sheets and pillowcases greet your foggy vision, and you’re clearly covered in what feels like six hundred pounds of blankets. You’re also angled at a weird incline on top of a billion pillows with patches of sunlight scattered here and there. Everything smells like sulfur. And you really. Really. Hurt.

You have never hurt so bad in your life.

You feel dry, ripped in two, wrenched apart. It’s not just your back, either, although that feels like you’re being bombarded by a million swords. It’s your dry mouth. It’s your stretched out arm. It’s your throbbing, hungover head.

You try to move your arms to prop yourself up, but only one of them responds and it sinks into the mound of pillows before it can do anything useful and you’re far too tired to pull it out again. You’ll try the next best thing…

“Karkat?” you say. Your voice comes out like steel wool. “Karkat, are you there?”

You hear something crash far away from you. Uh, wow, you are completely unaware of your surroundings. That had better be him or you’re screwed. You can’t even think about moving right now.

“Ow, Shitting-- Fuck-- Jade, I’m here. I’m here. Hold on—”

Okay, good, that’s him. You feel something shift on the bed just outside of your vision, but you can’t be bothered to attempt to turn your head to look.

“Jade, I’m going to have you sit up now, because you need to chug some water like you’re pouring a river into your gaping maw. This will hurt like a case of the bulgewarts.”

You don’t know what bulgewarts are, but you are sure they are incredibly painful. Karkat pulls the billion tons of blankets off you and you suddenly realize why they were on. Holy shit, you are losing body heat rapidly without something to keep it in. You would be so cold and dead if Karkat wasn’t a doctor.

He slips his hands around your bandaged waist and up your naked chest, and it takes you a few seconds of being utterly stunned that he literally just plopped his hand between your cleavage to remember that trolls don’t have that kind of social stigma. Yeah, that makes sense, Karkat would probably be nervous and stammering right now if he thought that boobs were a sexy thing.

Karkat presses up on your chest, and smoothly moves you upright. It’s fairly pain-free, he’s keeping your body in one straight line, and you don’t hurt any more than you were lying down. He kind of holds you there as you scoot your legs out from under you and sit cross legged on the bed. Before you have a chance to observe what’s happening, Karkat shoves a cup in your face, which you take with your good arm. When you drink, that water goes down so smooth down your dry throat it feels like heaven.

Karkat shifts in front of you, and you hand the cup back to him. He plops your glasses down on the bridge of your nose.

Oh, much better. You appear to be in a room entirely made of wood, the kind of room that is universally owned by old ladies. It’s an attic, judging by the way the ceiling is angled to a point, but it’s got a small fireplace where somebody’s got wood burning. The room is sparsely furnished, with just an armchair, a small wash table, and a bookcase. The wash table has a basin that looks filled to the brim with bloody water, loose thread, and burned out matches. The armchair is knocked over. Was he sleeping in that?

You look at Karkat. He’s just in his undershirt and pants again, but the undershirt is stained in all sorts of shades of red. Is that all your blood? Oh jeez, yeah, definitely would have been dead or infected right now if he wasn’t a doctor.

He’s smiling, peacefully, almost. What’s up with that? In another context, you’d think it was pretty cute, but you hurt way too much to think that anything’s cute right now.

He says something to you, quiet and flowing, in Alternian. It fits the setting, oddly, the words trickling out of his mouth and settling in the air like the sunbeams dancing on the bed.

It takes you a few moments of comprehension to realize he said, " _< Good morning, moon and stars.  >_"

“Wait, what?” you say. Oh, your voice feels so much better. “Why'd you say hello to the moon?”

He blinks. “No reason. How’re you feeling?”

You look down at yourself. You are seriously bandaged up, wrappings all around your collarbone, around your waist, and some kind of odd support on your arm for your dislocated shoulder. It’s pretty much trapped in a black sling that was probably your dress at one point, so you guess you’ll be one-handed for a while. Half your dress appears to be left intact, as you can see Karkat ripped it off from the hipbone upwards, but you’re really going to have to buy new clothes before you go outside. Humans probably won’t take kindly to your exposed chest!

“Kind of gross?” you say. “And cold. Was there not a healer around?”

“Nope, this town is so up its own boondocks’ asshole that there was literally nothing but a bar filled with speciesist trash and a bookstore, for some unknown reason.” He glances at your bandages. “I did the best I could, but you’re probably going to be in so much pain for so long you’ll want to tear your hair out.”

Oh! Karkat really did a lot for you. You need to thank him and apologize for messing up so bad and getting hit! But instead, you start to shiver.

“Fuck me,” says Karkat. “I’m so sorry, you’re probably freezing. Here, lay down, you need sleep, I’ll-”

You don’t wait for him to help you. You reach your good arm behind you to grab blankets to toss over your shoulders, but when you twist your waist-

“Ow!” you hiss, snapping back.

“Don’t do that, you absolute nookflap, you’ll rip out your stitches. If you want to throw a tantrum and avoid your bedtime, fine, be my guest, just let me take care of the soft covering square applicators.”

He reaches gingerly around you on both sides, grabbing the blankets and lifting them gently around your back. You cinch both of them with your good hand around your front, like wearing a cape. Karkat gives this cute smile at you, which makes you suspicious. You suddenly realize why.

“Oh my gosh, Karkat, you are totally getting a pale boner for this, aren’t you?”

Karkat gapes in the horror of you catching him in the act. “None of your business!”

“Um, excuse me, it totally is! We’re moirails and I gotta know!”

He winces. “Fuck, okay, I may or may not be illicitly enjoying taking care of you for a debilitating injury by just a tiny amount, like the tiniest fucking pinch you can imagine, but most of my actions are initiated because they’re honest-to-fuck needed. I swear.”

You make a motion to fold your arms together but remember you can’t move one of them, so you just frown instead. “Don’t dote on me, Karkat. I can take care of myself!”

“Doting? I don’t dote, Jade.”

“Um, yeah right, you totally made me a pile.” You nod at the mound of pillows you were just lying on. “That’s super moirail-y. I’m not even grimbark!”

“I, er-” Karkat stutters. He looks rapidly around the room like he’s trying to find an excuse, finds one, then furrows his brow. “You need to be kept at an angle to promote faster healing, dumbass.”

“Really?” you say, your voice dripping with displeasure.

Karkat curls his lip, his teeth looking like irregularly sharpened knives. “Yes. What’s with you? You’re being immensely argumentative for someone who just woke up after taking a severe wound.”

What is with you? You’re not going grimbark or anything, you just feel kind of crabby and sore. But there’s something else too. You sigh. “I’m sorry Karkat, I don’t feel very good, and I’m… honestly kind of worried about the whole moirail thing.”

Karkat nods, looking like a therapist trying to take notes. “How so?”

“Well… I dunno, I don’t want it to overlap with real life, I guess? I only need you to prevent me going evil, I don’t need you to… Um, lavish affection on me and be superficially nice? That weirds me out. I just want you to be yourself, because I like you and I like talking to you.”

“Who are you to judge if-” Karkat stops mid-yell, his mouth closing into a frown. “… Yeah, yeah, you’re right. I have to work on keeping my relationship boundaries solid, impenetrable lines, not letting any piece of shit feeling pass between their gates. There’s a time and place for moirailing and my fuckup self has to figure his shit out. The last thing I want to do is make you uncomfortable.”

You smile. “Good, I’m glad we can agree.”

He pauses, frowns, and then pokes you on the nose. You give a little ‘hey!’ noise as he says, “But, seriously, you do need an insane amount of help for the next few days— you’re going to have a hell of a time trying to move by yourself. I’m here for you, and that’s not due to the moirail thing we’ve got going. I’m your fucking friend and I am going to help you, no matter how much you try to resist.”

You try to resist by debating him on needing help, but you stop yourself before you say anything. Maybe you should just… let him help you out? You really don’t know the extent of your injuries, and Karkat’s a doctor, so it only makes logical sense to do so, right? Wow, he’s really doing a lot for you, you had better thank him.

Karkat keeps talking. “And, okay, while you were napping off the aftereffects of that shit ass alcohol and severe operative restoration procedures, I thought of a fucking plan. Are you ready? Good. We’re changing routes and going to Porkmor-Kahn. You need a healer and you’re going to find one there.”

He made a plan too? Karkat’s really got your back! You really, really want to say thank you, but he keeps talking.

“That’ll only add a whopping day onto our total travel time, Hgothrar is fairly close to our destination, so we’re ready set go from here on out. We’ll rest you up for three sun rotations so we don’t have to worry about some kind of drastic onset of injury side effects during travel, and then we’ll speed up the pace as we stumble our way bulge-first into the rampant cesspool of the city.”

“Um… Karkat? I have something to-”

“We’re speeding it up due to my lack of knowledge about human infections. You might get gangrene, I don’t actually know what it is, but you might get that. Just watch out for green gangs on you, or whatever the fuck it is. Humans have a hell of a lot of weird bacterial buddies fucking and breeding in their ligaments and we have to heal that shit out of there ASAP.”

“Karkat.”

“Oh, and don’t worry about lack of blood on your godawful scar, I reapplied it when you were sleeping. And don’t bother trying to take the staircase by yourself, if you need to use the ablution block or whatever I’ll carry you down the stairs. You’ll be able to walk and function just fine, as long as you don’t twist yourself like some kind of-”

You reach out your hand, gently place it against his jawline, and tilt his head towards yours.

“Karkat Vantas, I want to thank you for saving me! Thank you! Thank you for bandaging me up and taking me here and fighting all those bandits alone!”

Karkat’s eyes open wide. “No, fuck no. I didn’t do shit, it was an infinitesimal amount of motivation I had to muster up to accomplish what I did. You’ve rescued my paltry ass so much more and in situations much thicker than what you were in, and I have selfishly never thanked you. For example, in the exact same battle, you shielded me like six times where I would have gotten impaled through the shame bladders with a bunch of bolts, and that is way better than me failing to prevent you from getting your arm ripped out of your socket like a cluckbeast next to a-”

You stroke your thumb along the warm curve of his cheek, feeling the thick skin that you just want to cover in kisses. Karkat shuts up beautifully. “Shush, Karkat. It was really brave of you to save me. I would have died there if you weren’t around, and I don’t think there would be any stranger nice enough to wrangle my soul back for me. I’m so, so, so thankful you’re here with me.” You can feel heat rise to your face, so you try to pass it off as a big grin. “So, um, you had better accept that thank you! Otherwise I’m going to sock you one, asswipe.”

Karkat smirks. “Ha. Alright, fuckwad, if you’ll accept some appreciation right back at you like a curveball shat out of a flapping anus. Thanks for being there for me, inside and outside of battle. Especially the inside, I guess, since I’m extremely single-thinkpanned and narcissistic when I fight and you always end up saving…” He pauses, his teeth peeking out above his bottom lip. He looks away from you, appearing to find the wall across from him super interesting. “We really… we really complement each other, don’t we?”

You feel a lump form in your throat from a sudden onslaught of nervousness. But it’s not just those familiar crush-butterflies that arrive in that moment, it’s something else too, something that you haven’t felt for someone in a long time.

You deeply respect Karkat.

Karkat’s on your level. Karkat _gets_ it. You know that you sometimes have to break down his facade of self-absorption to talk with him, and he understands that he has to dig around deep inside you to get you to see outside yourself. He’s perceptive of how you work and you’re perceptive of how he works and together you’re like cogs in a teamwork machine. And sure, that machine might make a lot of noise and clash and break down sometimes but it all goes according to schedule. Complement each other? Oh, fuck yeah you do. And judging by the way Karkat’s biting his lip, he’s thinking of the same thing.

“I, hmm,” Karkat stammers. “I have to go pay the innkeeper, I told her I’d come down once you woke up and I’m pretty sure she’s a anti-troll assdick so I’d better hustle. Want anything while I’m down there?”

You drop your hand from his face. “Maybe something to eat? Don’t get anything fancy.”

“Right, I’ll chase a nutcreature around in remembrance of you as I try to relive our glory days in the plains.”

You giggle in reply as he stands up, grabs his cane, and opens the trapdoor near the foot of the bed to go downstairs. Is he really going out in a blood-stained shirt like that?

“By the way,” he says, staring someplace above your head. “… do you really like how I smell?”

It takes you a second to register what he’s referring to. What do you say to that? ‘No I was delirious?’ ‘Yes, let me sniff your natural musk?’ Maybe you should just tell the truth…

“Um, yeah?”

He blinks at you, frowns like you’re a problem he can’t solve, and says, “You’re so fucking weird.”

You fall back down onto your stomach as he leaves, snuggling up to the pillows. It’s cozy here, pressed up against a big warm bed, finally by yourself after ages of travel time with Karkat... Hmm. Sure, you're kind of sore, tired, hungover, and mortally wounded, but when has that ever stopped you? You shift so you can move your able arm underneath you and try to reach down between your legs...

You hiss with pain as the angle of your shoulder pulls the muscles where a bolt struck you, and you give up, returning your able arm to a comfortable position. Well, fuck. At least you can do the next best thing now that you're alone.

You turn your head face down into the pillow, take a deep breath, and scream bloody, frustrated murder at the top of your lungs.


	24. Trauma Inn

You usually don’t have a problem getting to sleep, but on the final night in Odette, you run into some serious troubles. You bet it’s because all you’ve been doing is sleeping the pain off for the past three days and all that rest finally caught up to you. Or maybe because you’re antsy that you haven’t been outside in a while. Sure, you went to the bookstore today and talked to the very friendly (but kind of drunk!) owner while Karkat read like, six books and only bought one of them, but that didn’t count. Anyway, you’ve been tossing and turning for like, an hour in a half! It’s hard to calm down enough to nod off when you’re worn out and angry about not sleeping.

After one particularly violent repositioning of your arm against the pillows, you hear Karkat say, “Are you okay over there? You sound like you’re seizing up.”

You groan, face first into the pillow. “Yeah, sorry, I can’t sleep.”

“You, not being able to sleep?” You hear him stand up in a loud thud of chair-legs. “Stop the presses and hold the magical modular communication devices, because this is fucking news.”

“You butt! Don’t make fun of me for suffering!” you say, trying to turn your head to glare at him. Your neck doesn’t twist that way though and you’re also kind of blind without your glasses on, so you give up and set your head back down against the pillow.

You hear Karkat’s limping gait against the floorboards as he approaches you. “As someone who considers themselves an expert in the field of sleep-”

“How are you an expert? You never sleep!”

“That just proves my point. I’ve gone far beyond your mastery of the resting arts. I’ve trained long and hard to outgrow the need for fucking ridiculous mortal urges.”

“Yeah right, your giant eye bags tell a different story!”

“My globesphere sockets do what they want. I have no control over their inane desires.” He pauses, then pokes you in the back through your bunches of blanket padding. “The god of sleep deems you need your rest. Scoot over.”

You shift over as he climbs under the comforters and scoots up next to you. He lies down on his back, his shoulder touching yours, and you narrow your eyes in an attempt to see something other than a foggy gray blob of Karkat jawline. It doesn’t work too well, but you still can’t help but smile at Karkat getting so close to you. “Oh? The god of sleep sharing his resting place with a mere mortal? How honored I am! What plans do you have for a lowly human!”

Karkat turns his head to you, you think, everything is kind of gray and dark. He holds a book up in your field of vision. “It’s story time, motherfucker. Direct from the holy lipflaps of your god.”

“Ooooo! Scary! I’m quivering in your glory. Oh, wait… Karkat, your books aren’t very good for bedtime reading. They’re too hilarious to settle me down.”

“Fuck you, they are serious works of art meant for serious situations. I couldn’t think of anything better than romance before drifting off into dreamland.” He pauses to flip open the book. “You’ll be relieved to know I will not be presenting you the *fine art* of troll romance tonight, I’ll be reading something else, something in one of your disgustingly primitive human languages that I picked up today at the bookstore. Can you speak Orlesion?”

You don’t know a word of it. Usually the dignitaries and nobles you’ve met from that continent speak Common. That’s why it’s called Common. “Not a word.”

“Wow, you really do have the worst thinkpan for linguistics, don’t you?”

“Hey, not all of us can be committed enough to want to insult _literally everyone_ in their native language.”

“Oh Jade, I’m so proud, that’s exactly why I spent sweeps painfully pouring over dictionaries in libraries that smelled like piss. You know me so well.”

You giggle. “Hey, so, are you going to read me a story in Orlesion?”

“Yeah, I heard it’s easy on the human articular sponge clots. And, er…” he pauses. It sounds like a heavy kind of pause. You wish you could see the expression on his face. “Fuck, I should have said this before I burrowed into the human respite panel with you, but even though you might not be aware of it… this is a pretty pale thing to do. Reading a book with you in the recupracoon. I mean, I’ve definitely stepped the bounds of what we agreed-”

“Oh, it’s okay, I like this. The physical stuff.” you say quickly.

Fuck. You didn’t mean to say that. Goddess, you're awful. You are pale-zoning yourself so hard right now, you should just buy the fedora now and start calling Karkat ‘m’troll’ and save yourself the trouble of any future fuckups.

“I… Really? Okay, that’s fucking awesome because I’m into this too.” he says. “We’re boarding the diamond train to snuggletown then, because this shit needs it’s own form of transportation.”

You feel like running through a field of flowers and stabbing yourself in the leg simultaneously. Fucking shit. Well, you’re in too deep now. Can’t back out.

Karkat slides an arm under your stomach and around your waist, avoiding any bolt wounds when he places that hand on your back, while you scoot half onto his torso. You end up kind of sprawled on top of him, getting an excellent view of the side of his head in your severely hyperopic vision range. You comfortably settle your arm in the sling against his side, and rest your other hand on his collarbone. He smells the same as before, this faint, coppery scent with a little touch of cinnamon.

“This is nice,” he says, quietly.

That makes you bite your lip. Karkat, quiet and breathless!? Lady, take you up now because life isn’t getting any worse/better than this. 

“Mhmm,” you agree.

You hear him flip open the book over the two of you. “Would you pull a light out of your magical ass or wherever you get it from? It’s kind of dim in here.”

“What happened to the other orb I summoned for you?”

“Over by the chair, it didn’t follow me because, surprise, I’m an untraceable mutant.”

“Wow, I never knew!” You raise your fingers, think of a tiny little sun, and snap. The cloudy view of Karkat’s sideburn thingys gets pleasantly brighter. “There you go. Start reading now! I’m excited.”

“Sure, fuckcorn, your wish is my command.” You hear a page turn. “These are some _chanson de gesta_ , if you want to know. I’m sure it doesn’t matter, lay back and fucking relax as I drive you straight into dead-ass sleep ville.

“ _Alo i flut vagues de Vext, nella leur grondumant lontano, mai apaise le ton sonna, et de baisere la tone riva? Ma e-_ ”

Karkat’s accent isn’t right, he adds too much flow to it like he’s trying to compensate for how edgy his voice normally is, putting surprise smoothness on the final bits of the words instead of focusing on the overall effect he’s giving. He’s choppy, broken, trying to keep in one solid shape as his voice laps against your ears in perfectly arrhythmic waves. He struggles to keep his volume at a white noise level, his gentle words awash with an outburst of emotion just barely hidden beneath the surface. But his tone, his focus, how his voice rises and falls like the nighttime tide and swims and dives in each noun like he wants to spend his sweet time with it before letting it leave his mouth, is utterly _orgasmic_. 

His chest rises warm against you at every pause, his fingers flicker just barely against your back whenever he reaches a word with too many vowels for his taste, and he gives a little shudder when an unwanted hint of those Alternian ‘r’s pops its way into his voice. When he turns the page, he has to tilt his arm down over you to be in range to flip with the hand on your back, and every slight embrace he gives you makes you shiver.

Okay, wow, this is absolute torture. And you feel like such a skeeze enjoying his company like this. You have to say something, you have to let him know you don’t want to stay moirails. You have to let him know how you feel about him so you can put an end to this and just be friends. And you’ve got to do it before you think about it too much, otherwise you’ll get nervous and panic and-

“You okay? Your barkbeast hearpoints are flicking me in the face.”

“Er, Karkat?” you say, as calmly as possible. “I’ve got something to tell you.”

“What is it, Jade?”

Oh gosh, the way he says your name so _tenderly_ makes your heart melt into a little Jade puddle of feelings. You don’t want that to stop, you don’t want to mess that up. You want to hang on to what you’ve got and treasure it forever and ever.

“Um, nothing.”

“You sure? You said it like one of those important trail off oneliners that generally come at the end of really shitty sequel hooks. And I know a lot about shitty sequel hooks since I’ve read every fucking one in existence.”

What the fuck. Okay, you guess that means you’re not going to be able to shirk away from telling him what’s up. Well, you gotta be brave and go through with it. You’re Jade Harley, you can take a little heartbreak!

… Just not right now.

“I guess it is kind of important… But I changed my mind! I don’t want to tell you right now. I’ll tell you before we get to Porkmor-Kahn though, I promise.”

He’s silent for a long time. Did you say it weird or something? Before you can ask him what’s up, he finally says, in the kind of tone he would probably use if someone perma-died on him, “Okay.”

Huh, wonder what’s up with that. It might be hypocritical for you to ask what he means when you won’t even tell him what you mean, so instead you say, “What’s this book about?”

“Collection of romance poems, pretty much. I don’t really get it.”

“Why not?”

He shifts his shoulder and you lift your head up a bit for him to readjust. “It’s all heaps upon piling heaps of the weird human concept of romance. Completely incomprehensible pornography. Right now Genivieve and Romero are about to take the mage and knight bonding vows, even though they were clearly tri-vacillating between pale and black with Huero and Romero should clearly commit to be Genivieve's witch out of sheer rivalry.”

You settle back in, all comfy against his chest. “Awww, I’m sure it’s not so bad, maybe if you read more you’d understand?”

“So not worth it. The quadrant system is a far superior solution and I intend to adhere to it always.” 

Shot to the heart. You almost say ‘Ouch’ out loud before remembering it’s just you with these feelings. “Psh, yeah right, one day you’ll realize how awesome humanity is and convert to our schemes!”

“Keep dreaming, fucker. Oh, uh, is this working, by the way? Is my pity-worthy Orlesion somehow creating the illusion of respite in your thinkpan?”

You can’t help the little smile that grows on your face. “Yeah, it’s working. I like listening to you read like this.”

“Huh, really? I thought you’d be going grimbark by this point in bitter anger at how awful I pronounce the ‘aAh’s. I know I’d be ass deep in personified rage if I had to listen to me.”

He shifts, you hear the flutter of the page, and he begins to read again.

You let yourself to get carried along by the dark tide of his voice, not really focusing on the details this time, but just zoning out and listening while you think. 

If you’re going to tell Karkat you don’t want to be moirails anymore, you’ve got to be prepared to deal with the consequences from that! The chance of Karkat reciprocating your feelings is super tiny, especially with how uneducated he is about human romance, so you had better plan on rejection. But you’re not sure what kind of rejection he’ll give you. A ‘yeah, let’s just be friends’ sort or a ‘fuck you I never want to talk to you ever again you asshole this is payback for four years ago when you rejected me’ sort? Or even a ‘what do you mean moirailing isn’t human bff behavior that’s incredibly creepy you went along with it wow’ sort.

You’re scared, but you can’t keep the farce up forever without somebody’s feelings getting seriously hurt. Probably yours. And you can’t say you’ll be unhappy if the best rejection scenario happens and you transition into normal friendship. Karkat is a very precious friend to you! At this point, you decide, it’s best if you just get it off your chest. Before you get to Porkmor-Kahn.

Your thoughts fade away on a happy note, as you drift off to the rolling timbre of Karkat’s voice.


	25. You Must Gather Your Party Before Venturing Forth

And, of course, ‘tell you before we get to Porkmor-Kahn’ means ‘tell you the night before we arrive.’ You’ve put it off until now, because you were afraid that if things went awry it would change the dynamic between the two of you. You don’t want to say goodbye to silly jokes about your ears or arguments about biology or endless, fantastic chats about nothing. You reveled in them these past few days, enjoying every moment journeying through the forest, as Karkat took the reigns of Halley due to your wounds and you drove the conversations instead of him. You’ve really, really enjoyed this, but you’ve got to tell him tonight. You promised.

You have absolutely no idea how he’ll react and that’s terrifying. It’s so scary when you can’t predict how something will turn out, especially when it concerns your friends. You should know how Karkat works, you should know how he’ll react by now, but you just don’t. You feel like you’re at the edge of a bottomless pit and are about to jump in. Well, you gotta take the leap sometime.

Karkat finishes the line on your cheek with a quick dot. “-and there is absolutely *no fucking way* Halley is a run-of-the-mill barkbeast, he’s got to be some kind of secret ancient ever evolving life form if he’s been passed down through generations of your human-incest bred family that long. Also, he’s gigantic, I mean, what the fuck.”

You nod along with him as Karkat scoots away from you on the bedroll. He looks at you, his puzzlement accentuated due to the shadows cast against his face from the fire. “Er, no comment about the ‘incest-bred’ line I slipped in? No defense of Halley being ‘just a normal dog!’? Are you okay?”

You can do this, you’ve gone through it a million times over in your head, all you need to do is calm down enough to power through it. You take a deep breath.

“Karkat, I’ve got something important to tell you.”

“Uh, go for it?”

You take another breath, and say something that’s been a long time coming. “I want to stop being moirails. I know we were going to wait to stop being moirails until I got cured, which will be pretty soon, but I can’t keep it in anymore! I think we might be starting down the path of ‘friends with pale benefits’ that will last until even after I’m cured and I don’t want that kind of relationship with you.”

Well, whatever he was expecting, it clearly wasn’t that. Karkat’s shoulders fall and his mouth opens with a silent drop of rejection. He looks very, very sad. Oh no. “Fuck, fuck, I knew this would happen, I knew I would fuck it up completely, I knew I would make you uncomfortable. I shouldn’t have suggested it, I shouldn’t have imposed it on a human, I shouldn’t-”

“Wait, Karkat, I’m not cutting off our weird moirail thing because I’m uncomfortable. Well, okay, kind of, but not in the way you think.”

You close your eyes, taking your time to gather your thoughts, and calm yourself down enough to begin.

“I really like you. I think about you a lot. Like, more than anything else! And that’s absolutely crazy, since we’re together 24/7 all the time! You think I would need a Karkat Vantas break once in a while, but no, I don’t. I want to be close to you and do some things with you that don’t fit into the moirail quadrant. And that desire isn’t going away!

“I want to be in a relationship with you. A human sort of relationship. A relationship that involves holding hands and kissing and probably some weird cross-species sex.

“I know you aren’t really familiar with the concept of human romance, but that’s the kind of thing I want to do with you, Karkat. I’d be glad to explain it to you, if you want, but the short of it is that I can’t continue being moirails with you because some parts of pale activity overlap with the kind of things you do with a romantic partner, and it’s… it’s going to end up hurting me.”

Karkat very smoothly transitioned from looking utterly crushed to some kind of flat faced expression over the course of your confession. He’s been staring you dead in the eye with the most deadpan look you’ve ever seen on him. Even his mouth flattened out from its normal frown into a straight line worthy of Dave Strider. That’s… really unnerving. After a very long pause, with unblinking eye contact, he opens his mouth.

“I… kind of knew you thought that way about me.” he says. It’s articulate and slow, like he’s putting an immense amount of effort to not launch into his usual passionate dialect. “I’ve had suspicions for long time. I’ve been ignoring them. Because I’m a coward.”

You can literally feel your heart drop down into your chest. His mouth twitches, and you see a little glimmer of normal, angry Karkat, before he pushes it back down.

“I’m sorry.” he says, utterly still. He’s quiet, so quiet. “I’m really sorry. I don’t think I feel the same way about you.”

Your ears fall down flat against your head. You bet they want to sink into the ground and disappear forever too. “If you knew… Why didn’t you… say anything? Why didn’t you…”

“Because I care about you. You’re a dear friend to me.” he says, so delicately. He’s practiced this in his head too. Oh _gods_ , he’s practiced this. “I couldn’t fucking bring myself to outright reject you. I’ve been dancing around this issue like some wilty half-assed artist, because I’m a fuckup.”

You bite your lip in a sudden wave of bitterness. “So you knew I had a crush on you? You knew what a human crush was? You knew that and you _still_ did all that moirail stuff with me? You hugged me and touched me and _slept with me *twice*_ knowing that might maybe fuck up my feelings a little bit?”

That takes him off guard. “Wait. What? What the fuck. That isn’t just a human ‘best friend’ thing to do?”

“No! Those kind of things in combination are generally things you do with your partner!”

Karkat’s eyes open to extreme proportions as his mouth drops open in absolute horror. “Oh, *fuck.* Wet sacfucking Lord on high. Well, I sure fucked up unbelievably harder than I could have ever dreamed. I had absolutely no fucking idea… Goddesses, I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry. I thought I was sending some very clear signs I didn’t want to be anything different to you…”

It actually makes you feel a little better now that he’s freaking out too. You slap your hand to your forehead. “No, no, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to say that. It was my fault for not stopping you earlier. What the heck do matesprits even do to each other that causes you to think stuff like that is 100% friends only?”

“There’s a lot of biting and pointing out of pitiful body parts involved, it’s a weird balance. If it makes you feel any better I made certain not to even wantonly graze that area of romance with you.”

“It doesn’t.”

Karkat sighs, like he’s trying to shrug off something heavy but it just isn’t moving. “Anyway, I swear to everything that’s holy and right I really, really didn’t want to hurt you. You’re fucking awesome, and I’m flattered to the nines you chose to make me the object of your affections.

You try to giggle, but it just comes out forced. “That’s okay, Karkat. I kind of knew this would happen, I mean, not you knowing I had a crush on you-”

“You’d have to be as dense as a pile of clay building cubes not to notice. I barely understand the concept of human attraction and *I* fucking noticed.”

“-Whatever, buttface! But I thought you might straight up reject me. It’s only fair, right? I rejected you four years ago, you reject me now… Maybe you’ll get a black crush on me in another four years and I can reject you then and it’ll be like this weird rejection reincarnation cycle.”

You expect him to go off on that, maybe steer the conversation back into a nice, safe, ‘let’s just be friends!’ territory, but he hesitates. He hesitates for a long, long, time, looking like he’s about to say something, then stopping, then making faces like he’s going to alternatively burst into tears and start yelling.

“Um… Karkat? Why are you hesitating? Just say ‘no’ to me and we can move on and be normal friends.” A thought occurs to you. Something terrible. Something hopeful. “You… _are_ rejecting me, aren’t you?”

Karkat makes a noise like he’s trying to prevent himself from imploding, then goes quiet, and runs a frustrated hand through his hair. “Yes. But, fuck, this is so not going according to plan. Fuck, I’m literally going to die from shame.”

You narrow your eyes. “Karkat… what are you talking about.”

He winces, hard. “Alright, since we’re here, I’ve got a confession too. And my confession is infinitely more shallow and morally bankrupt than yours. Incredibly so. To vast, cavernous amounts. And I want to punch myself in the vocal chute for it, but here it is.”

He hikes his knees up to his chest, grabs them tightly, and wedges his face into them. He breathes heavily, like he’s going to die from lack of oxygen. He’s hiding, why the fuck is he hiding? Why is he embarrassed?

He says very, very quietly, “I think you’re beautiful.”

Your mouth drops open of its own accord.

“You’re gorgeous,” he says, into his knees. “You’re hot. You’re a fucking bombshell. I, god, I can’t even describe… Fuck, _< The curve of your biceps, the line down the midst of your back, hair like wild fucking waves raging on the black sea, ————— ————— ——— like reams of fabric cascading into starry —————, ————— décolletage ————— —————, and your —————— ———————— ——— —————, ————— —————— ———. _ > Uh, anyway, I thought… still think, actually… that I was so lucky to have someone as lid-bogglingly attractive as you for a moirail, even a temporary one, because I could embrace you and touch your fucking divine form when you needed me to.

“If you hadn’t developed a crush on me, Jade, if you hadn’t fucking felt shit, I would have… Fuck, there’s no way around it, I would have cut off the moirailship and asked to pail you. Pailing. Casual pailing. The human pail thing. Sex? Whatever. Fucking.”

Your thoughts are a string of incoherent syllables. “What the fucking shit, Karkat. What? I, what? What!?”

Karkat screams into his knees, wrenches his head up, and pulls on his hair in an amazing and brilliant display of Karkat tantruming. “I’m not sure if you’ve fucking noticed this, Jade, but I’m not the kind of troll who just casually sticks his bulge into people. I need rose petals, I need affection, I need *special attention.* I need to be in a filial fucking quadrant with someone before I make that leap, and you’re definitely not in that, so it sends me into a spiral of shit-eating thoughts whenever I think about my priorities!”

You’re horrified. “Karkat! What the fuck! What the fuck!!!”

“I know! I fucking know! But that’s why you see me hesitating! Because there’s this small, garbage heap part of me that wanted to say ‘yeah, let’s do your human romance thing’ so I could… ugh. Just, ugh. It wouldn’t be legitimate. It would just be fucking carnal. God, look at me, I didn’t want to screw with your feelings, but here we are. I’m like some kind of cancerous sore that destroys every good relationship I have in my life.

“I care really fucking deeply about you Jade, really fucking deeply, and that will always override what my bulge thinks about you! This is the one time that you’re going to hear about this and after this point on my flapping speech hole will be shut about my absolutely disgusting desire to pail the shit out of you. In fact, you literally do not have to talk to me from this point onwards and I will one hundred percent understand.”

He looks like he’s going to keep scream-ranting, but he needs to take a pause to inhale all the air he missed out on in the past fourty five seconds. You try to quickly gather up what remains of your thought processes to jump in and say something.

“You want to have casual sex with me!? You!? Karkat Vantas, the closest thing trolldom has to ‘no sex before marriage’!?”

“Fuck you, I can be loose with my parts if I want to!”

“Yeah, _okay_ , Mr. ‘I’ve only ever porked Terezi and I always cried afterwards!’”

“I should have never told you that, you utter nookwipe. My shameducts wouldn’t leak with you because we would have done it black!”

“Karkat, that would be awful. I would go grimbark halfway through and probably yank your bulge off!”

“Add that to ‘list of things I never wanted to think about.’ But fine, in this hypothetical pailing scenario which lacked any sort of ill-focused emotional attachment on your part, we would engage in a ‘friends with black benefits’ post-cure relationship. Do humans do that?”

You start laughing really hard because this is hands down the weirdest rejection you’ve ever received. Wow, okay, you thought you had some terrible sexual repression going on, but at least you didn’t start yelling about it at the slightest inclination. Karkat must really think you’re hot??? Which is super weird because it would normally be incredibly objectifying and you would probably get mad about it, but you know he doesn’t value you just for eye candy or touching. It’s definitely a minor garnish on the Jade Harley experience.

“Yeah, humans can do the ‘friends with benefits’ stuff. How long did you, um, think I was super hot?”

Karkat’s nostrils flare as your comment forces him to go down a different track of rant than he was planning on. “Always. Wait, fuck, no, not ‘always.’ I always thought you were attractive, no surprise there, but it didn’t get this intense until a few weeks ago.”

Hooooooo boy. This rabbit hole just keeps getting deeper. This… definitely does not sound like an average case of lust if it developed out of nowhere.

“Uh, Karkat, not like I have an ulterior motive here, but are you _sure_ that so-called garbage part of you isn’t… onto something? I mean, I also deeply care about you, and I also want to fuck you. A lot. That’s generally what… happens… in human romance…”

Karkat digs his claws into his scalp, his face blossoming into a nice tomato color. “I don’t… I don’t get that, you know? I can’t reconcile those two things! They’re on completely different ends of the quadrant spectrum. I can’t care about you in this already taboo pseudo-pale way and also want to fuck you * _and then base a long-lasting relationship on that_ *! It cannot be a permanent bond, there’s nothing to build a foundation on. It’s just sick and wrong, it’s biologically insubordinate. It’s a betrayal to the Alternian culture. I don’t pity you and I don’t want to erotically rip your bloodpusher out, so there shouldn’t be a reason for all these forbidden urges.”

“I dunno, it makes sense to me. Do you want me to try and explain it?”

“Trust me, trust me from the bottom of your bloodpusher when I say that I’ve already tried to learn. Why do you think I got that book!? I _hate_ reading inferior human languages, but I fucking tried because…” he has to stop to take a breath, his oxygen supply completely spent from ranting. He calms down immensely when he finishes intaking air. “… because I want you to be happy. *I* want to be happy. I want us to be happy.”

He tried to learn for you? He tried to understand what you were feeling? That makes your chest tight. You twist the bottom of your shirt between your fingers. “… So, how do we get there?”

Karkat’s voice comes out like sandpaper. “I don’t know. I don’t think we can.”

You sigh. You aren’t going to push him any more. But you really like Karkat! And you think Karkat kind of likes you too even though he doesn’t realize it? At least he thinks you’re hot? Those things aren’t much of a comfort.

“Okay, that’s fine, I get it. Trolls and humans are a hard combo! Let’s just be friends for now. No moirailing, no close touching, just friends.”

Karkat hesitates, then nods. He looks really sad about it, like he’s at a funeral. “You’re… okay with that? I swear if you never want to talk to me again I won’t even argue about it.”

“Of course I’m okay with it! I’ll like you no matter what, even if we do have a lot of unresolved sexual tension.”

You meant it as a joke, but Karkat jerks his head away from you, breaking eye contact. You watch the red flush on his cheeks come back with a bang. Blushing over the prospect of boning? What is he, tweleve years old?? He digs his hands into the blanket underneath him. “Let’s not ever talk about that again. Ever.”

“Aww, come on, Karkat,” you tease. “You never know what’ll happen, my crush will probably go away eventually and then we-”

“Jade.” He glares at you, dead serious. “Don’t.”

Whoa.

You realize, as you look at him all tensed up and just barely shaking, that you could push Karkat over the edge with very little effort. If you were to lean in, just a few feet, and kiss him, he wouldn’t stop until you had told him to. That knowledge gives you a thrill, a jolt of power from somewhere that definitely isn’t a part of you.

He wanted black? You could give him that, you could give him that IN SPADES. You could bite the skin of his neck just hard enough to bruise, bite him until he screamed, bite until he begged for you. You could dig your nails into his collarbone as you locked him to the ground with your thighs, scratching from his shoulders to the edge of his pelvis, marking him with lines drawn in blood. You could rock against his hips until you had taken your fill of him and USED HIM like-

“Jade, whatever you’re thinking about, you need to stop it right the fuck now.”

That yanks you out of it. Jeez, that went way overboard way too fast. You feel the grimbarkness leave you in a rush. “Oh goddesses, I’m sorry. Yeah, let’s not talk about it again.”

You hold out your hand to him. “Okay, back to normal. So, what do you say. Friends?”

“Friends.” says Karkat, his tenseness loosening with your smile. He takes your hand, shaking on your promise.

As you semi-awkwardly go to bed that night, with Karkat reading by the fire (he’s clearly pretending, his eyes keep flickering off the page and zoning out towards the night sky), you try to go over what happened and organize all your thoughts. You make yourself promise that you won’t egg him on into doing anything he doesn’t want to do, even though you _totally could_ push him into it. You’re not going to be evil and keep pursuing him! You can’t! That is such a dick move! Especially since he’s a big ball of emotional unknowns and you’re head-over-heels in like.

The status of how this is going to affect your normal friendship is also up in the air. Will this make things awkward? Will the sexual tension increase tenfold? What will Karkat do about that? At least you agreed that you’re both rather fond of each other and do want to keep talking. And… when will your crush go away? Sure, you’re sad about it, but it’s not going to disappear overnight.

Well, you’ve only got a few more days until you find your cure… and if worse comes to worse… you can part ways then. Your journey ending makes you very sad to think about, so you pull the blanket up over your head with your working arm, and try very hard to fall asleep. Tomorrow morning, you'll arrive in Porkmor-Kahn, and maybe things will be clearer then.


	26. Porkmor-Kahn

"Vantas."

"Egbert."

"Care to explain why my sister looks like shit?"

Karkat opens his mouth in a sudden onslaught of comeback, stops, glances at you, licks his lower lip, and says very carefully, “No.”

You roll your eyes. “We got attacked by bandits and I messed up. Karkat saved me.”

John raises an eyebrow in brotherly suspicion. “Reaaaaaaaally? That story sounds fishy to me… Weren’t you the one always saving Karkat?”

Karkat almost whacks you in the head with your own gun with the force of his arm movements. “Times have fucking changed, shitmouth, I’ve leveled the fuck up since I’ve last had the displeasure of speaking with you.”

"Well, um, yeah! You weren't very good at protecting her before, she had to protect herself!"

Jane raises her hand with a meek gesture. "Jade, should I-"

"Fucking Lord, your inane questionings and statements have gotten even worse than I could have imagined over the sweeps. You're an absolute imbecile, my contempt for you knows no mortal bounds, spiraling beyond the reach of this shithole of a galaxy into godly territory."

"At least I'm not a huge asshole, how did my poor sweet dear precious half-sister manage?"

You groan. Neither of them seem to notice. Jane puts her hands on her hips and leans forward. "Jade, I'm going to-"

"She managed just perfectly, and we were peachy the whole damn trip. In fact, she was a fucking joy to have along, not that you would understand, you vile, vapid grubshit."

"Yeah, okay, if everything was so great, then why does she have a bunch of bandages? And a broken arm or something? And why do you have a cane, that's really suspicious?"

You facepalm, which would be a double facepalm if everything was working. "Oh my gods, what is with you two!?"

Jane gestures at you like she would at a beautifully set dinner table and it was time to eat. "I am trying to heal her wounds, and all the pair of you can do is bicker!?"

John and Karkat glance at each other sheepishly. "Oh, yeah sure, go do that." says John.

Jane sighs, turning to you, and holds her hands out with a smile. "This won't hurt a bit!"

She places her hands on your shoulder, light enough so you don't feel any pain on your wound. She closes her eyes, buzzes with a faint blue light, and your upper body starts to pulse with the rapid movement of blood. You feel your shoulder click and turn painlessly into a permanent, normal resting place. You feel the stitches fall off the hole through your collarbone as your skin and muscle knots itself shut. You feel the puncture wound on your waist pleasantly recover, taking with it any residual soreness and scabs. Jane drops her hands as you shake your arm out of the sling.

Feels good to have a working arm again! You give it a quick flex to make sure everything is working. Yay, muscles! Welcome to the gun show. You catch Karkat staring at you, but he flicks his eyes away before you can waggle your eyebrows at him. Yeah, you probably shouldn't tease him about this until at least a few days have passed. Or at least 24 hours.

"Thanks, Jane!" you say. "Everything is operating perfectly!" 

"Wow, Jane, you're good." says John.

Jane adjusts her Princess tiara. "I know."

"Anyway," continues John. "I gotta say I'm really surprised you came, you always ditch out on my parties. Not really sure why you brought _Karkat_ as a date though. I thought you hated that guy?"

Karkat flips him yet another bird as you try to figure out what John just said. "What are you talking about? We're not going to any parties. I told you, we're heading towards Hgothrar to get a book to cure my curse and I needed healing so-" It hits you mid sentence, and you clasp your hands over your mouth. Oh no! Feferi even warned you about this too, and you completely forgot! "-Oh my gosh, John, it's your birthday. It's your birthday today and I totally- Oh no, oh no, I knew I shouldn't have taken that reminder off my pinky! I didn't get you a present, I'm so sorry, I am so going to make it up to you by getting something really awesome after-"

You stop when you notice the familiar 'pranksters grin' spread across John's face. He makes a big show of shrugging and winking. "Ohhhhhhhh? What was that? You didn't get me a present? Guess you have noooooooo choice but to go to my party and make it up to me! And you have noooooooo choice but to have fun and dance a lot and talk with me!"

No! He's got you like a deer in the torchlights! "You really want me to go to your party? Really really? That badly? You know I don't like being with so many people in one room, especially when you're not the one inviting the guests. I wouldn't mind going if your birthday wasn't always this big political thing."

"Aw, Jade, don't worry about it," says Jane. "It'll be quite the affair, as per usual. And I'll pull you away if you need me to save you from an awkward social situation!"

"Thanks, Jane... But, still, _Mom_ will be there. And my gross troll fiancée." You side-eye Karkat to see if he reacts to that, and he sure does. He glares up at the ceiling while trying to process the 'troll fiancée' thing. Good, maybe he'll hide you during John's party.

"You don't have to talk to them, jeez." says John. "Besides, I need your help distracting my dad from shoveling Mom's cake into my face. You gotta use your necromancy powers to zombify the cake and levitate it somewhere else!"

"I am not using my necromancy in the middle of a ballroom!"

"Just kidding! I promise you're not going to have a terrible time, really. Oh, yeah, and _your_ weird dad is coming, for once."

Oh? Dad? You haven't seen your dad in forever! He's always super busy with things. You can't stop the big grin that spreads across your face at the prospect of seeing your dad. John smiles in triumphant victory, knowing he's convinced you to come to his party.

Karkat elbows you gently in the side. "You have... a human male custodian who provided half of the birthing process?"

Jane folds her arms. "Of course she has a father! Do you think she was born from some happenstance magical experiment?"

"Not going to lie, yes."

You smile at Karkat. "My dad is so cool, you'll really like him. Anyway, that means I'm sold! Make way, John's party, kickass adventurers coming through!"

Karkat groans, loudly. "You can't be serious."

"And Karkat's my date!"

"Fuck you Jade Harley, fuck you six ways to the stars."

"Well, you can't go in those clothes, I'll send you to my favorite seamstress." says Jane. "You'll probably have to select from various premade services due to the time constraints, but I believe she's skilled enough to take care of the two of you! She has great skill at plunging necklines."

"That's a weird thing to be skilled in." you say.

Jane shrugs. "She does have certain assets on her own body that allow her to, um, well... Anyway, I'm sure you'll find a good fit with Porrim."

The two of them say their goodbyes as some of the clerks escort you to your rooms. You've still got your old room, of course, all your stuffed animals and friends neatly dusted and arranged around your super comfy four poster bed. Karkat apparently gets put up in the troll side of the castle where "they have fucking recuperacoons, Jade. And none of this low quality mud-sopor either, I'm talking 1,000 chemical count sopor. Jade, it's been sweeps since I've been holed up in a proper tub, my life is so wholesome right now."

You decide your plan for the rest of the day should include at least an hour long nap, a food raid on the kitchen for lunch, and then visit Porrim for an outfit before John's birthday bash. And then pick up Karkat, you guess. You wonder if he'll get a plunging neckline too. What's in-fashion for troll dudes, anyway? Are outfits based on blood color? If so, he's going to have a hard time fitting in with all the purple bloods that will be there. Although it'll definitely be really quality entertainment watching Karkat inevitably go toe-to-toe with nobles who deserve a good punch in the face.

Maybe this won't be so bad, after all.


	27. Costume Swap

You ruffle your hands through your hair again, hook your bolero around your waist, and make sure the absolute-darkness enchantment will not be slipping away from the bodice anytime soon. Yup, it’s definitely pinned securely in place! Speaking of which, your boobs look incredible. They look like they’re trying to break out of their fleshy cage in an explosion of tight fabric! Just what you wanted! Time to take on the town.

You meander down the long, carpeted hallway to the other side of the castle and Karkat’s guest room, and knock on the black wooden door. “Hey, Karkat, it’s your escort here to pick you up for the primary school friendship day dance!”

No sound from the room inside. Aw, did he not hear you? That was a funny joke, too! You spent a good ten minutes thinking up that one. Maybe the door is too thick.

You knock again. “Karkat, helloooooo?”

You hear a frustrated scream from inside. Well, you’re not one to invade someone’s privacy, but making unexplained noises definitely gives you an excuse to enter. You push on the door, and it opens. Guess he didn’t lock it.

Karkat’s sitting on a big pile of cushions in the center of the trollian bedroom, a jacket that probably costs more than his livelihood clutched in his fists, and mumbling obscenities. He snaps his head up when you walk in, his face twisted in utter rage. 

“Jade, this fucking thing wont-” his face softens. He looks you up and down and you give a little twirl for him. “Oh, you look great. Your calves look *incredible,* like they could murder an inferior mortal if they turned their viewglobes towards- fuck."

Karkat throws his jacket across the room, covers his face with his hands, and groans in a tone that sounds like… embarrassment? "Fuck. I didn’t mean to say… That was way out of line, wasn’t it? Fuck.”

Oh! Duh. He thinks that you think that his comment was an attempt to hit on you. Karkat's just being a butt about it. You'll have to fix that!

“Karkat, you’re allowed to compliment me! I know you’re not trying to get in my pants and genuinely think my legs are nice. It’s totally okay! Thank you for saying that!”

“No, this is totally lead-you-on behavior, I’m a huge fuckup who-”

You interrupt him by flopping sideways onto the pile. You land next to him with a hard ‘poof,’ sending him seesawing up a bit as he jolts in surprise. This does not have the intended effect of making him relax and jokingly yell at you, instead, he starts panicking.

“Fuck, fuck no, you can’t just sit willy-nilly in a pile with someone who isn’t your moirail anymore! Where the shit did you put your cultural sensitivity?”

“Oh! Sorry, I didn’t think about that! I forgot that’s not-” you try to get up by rolling onto your stomach and pushing off the pillows, but they’re so soft you just end up sinking your arms all the way in. “-oops.”

“Incompetent human, that is not how you get off a pile, let me-”

Karkat pulls on your shoulders way too hard in an attempt to help, and he doesn’t expect how easily you give. He ends up accidentally leveraging you towards his torso, and you both make silly scream noises as you flop into him. You and Karkat are both sent sprawling into the pile, your back on his chest, and your neck against the top of his shoulder. Your cheeks are just barely pressing together, his feels like it’s burning up.

You both lie like that for a bit, breathing heavily in an attempt to calm yourselves down, and you don’t dare flick your eyes over to see what expression Karkat’s making.

“We’re just not going to win, are we?” he says.

“Nope.”

You feel his hand shift under yours, soft cotton glove over his knuckles push against your palm, and he laces his fingers between your own.

“Jade, I want…” he hesitates, pulls your hand tight against his own. “I don’t know.”

You wait for him to say something else, to keep ranting, but he doesn’t continue. You listen to him breathe in and out like he’s forcing himself to keep up a slow rhythm. Your heart isn’t fluttering, isn’t doing anything but keeping things pumping with a deathly calm.

“What do you want?” you say, quietly. This is delicate. “Do you want to shooshpap me? Or just talk to me? Or kiss me?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know. I just… I don’t fucking understand it.”

That’s all you’re going to get from him, isn’t it? You sit up in his lap, unhook your hand from his, and carefully stand up without hurting him. When you turn to look at him, he’s lying there with this zoned out, vacant expression on. 

“Karkat.” you say. He snaps his head up. “We’ve still got a dance to go to!”

“Right.” He sits up, rubs his hands against his eyes like he just woke up, and sighs. “Time to summon up all the miniature grubs of polite fashion who managed to worm their way bulge-first into my thinkpan. There aren't that many, let me tell you."

“What were you yelling about before I came in?”

Karkat’s face returns to its normal grumpy position, which makes your face switch to your normal smile. Whew. “Oh, right, that fucking jacket, the bane of my existence, the strips of heavy cloths borne exclusively to violently assfuck me into submission.”

“This?” You pick it up off the ground, and hold it out to him. It is kind of heavy… and it kind of looks like something a pirate themed healer mage would wear.

“I am not wearing that to the fuckball.”

“You have to wear it to the fuckball! You can’t just go without a jacket, that’s not cool!”

“Will not.”

“Will too!”

“Will not.”

You throw it at him, and he scrambles to catch it as it lands over his head. “Fine,” he says, through muffled fabric. “But I’m wearing it over my shoulders, because that’s cool.”

“It is not cool, who even does that?”

He makes a “grahhh” sound as he gets it off his head, and whooshes the jacket over his shoulders like a cape. He hooks the clasp between the edges of the collar so it will stay on. It ends up really crooked, but you don’t bother to point it out. It wouldn’t look like a Karkat kind of outfit if it weren’t charmingly disheveled.

“I feel ridiculous,” he says, standing up. “These are the tightest fucking pants I have ever worn in my life and I hate them. I would consider filling my black quadrant with these pants, that is how much I despise their taught folds and inability to hide my cull-worthy leg.”

You give him a look over as he bends to pick up his cane. Wow, those pants cup his butt like angel’s hands. It’s incredible. You shed an inner tear at how beautiful it is. Goddess bless seamstress guildmistress Porrim Maryam. Goddess bless.

He’s wearing his brace on the outside for once, which kind of obscures his ass with these random rope-y belt things. You’ve never seen it before, Karkat always shirked away somewhere whenever he had to take it off or readjust it. It makes sense why he did that now, the thing is pretty expansive and there’s no way you could get to it without getting mostly naked. 

“No, you look great! I promise.” You quickly think of something to compliment him on besides his hot butt as he stands up straight. “Your brace looks really cool! Did Porrim want you to wear it on the outside?”

Karkat rolls his eyes. “For some shit mouthing reason, despite the fact it might possibly spell my demise if some conservative Alternian caste believer sees it. Wouldn’t blame them, who the hell would be ass-emptily irresponsible enough to wear an accessory that emphasizes something that you get fucking culled over?”

You grin. “It’s okay, Karkat, you’ve got the protection of the royal family!”

“That’s what I was told by the seamstress.”

“Perfect!” you say. He raises his hand to smack it against his forehead, but you speed high-five snipe him before he makes it that far. Yeah! You’ve won this round, Jade.

Karkat doesn’t know what to do so he just leaves his hand there with a look of horrible confusion on his face. You grab his palm and bring it down to appropriate hand-holding levels. “Anyway, I say it’s time we get to the party.”

“Sure, moon and stars. I’ll try not to feel too incompetent next to your common sense-defying dress.”

You bap him on the arm. “I’ll try not to feel too incompetent next to your super cool accessories."

Er, wait, what’d he call you? Dammit Jade, you missed your chance to comment on it! Karkat’s already walking out the door, and you follow. When you’re out in the long, empty hallway, you turn to him, and hook your free arm around his right one.

“Jade Harley, you are linking appendages with me. Does this imply I’m your chaperone to the fuckball?”

“Oh no, sorry Karkat, you’ve got it in reverse. I’m escorting _you_ to the fuckball! I mean, John’s birthday party.”

He just huffs at you, and you squeeze his arm lightly. A whole bunch of very well-used muscles greet your fingers. Mmm, yes- Oh wait, that grip might be too intimate? You switch your angle to hook arms with him.

“The party is down this way!” You point. “Let’s go!”

Hopefully this won’t be so bad!


	28. The Fuckball

The first thing you do when you get there is scope out spots to hide when you have to talk to someone you don’t want to, since ‘behind Karkat’ won’t always work. Unfortunately, the ballroom is pretty much cleared out of all tables, chairs, and other random objects in order to fit the massive crowd of people currently crammed in the huge room. The pillars holding up the grand arched ceiling are too narrow to duck behind, the hanging curtains around the walls too sheer, and the only tables in sight host a buffet sort of thing. It would probably cause an uproar if you ducked under something holding a huge amount of easily toppleable cakes, so that’s a no-no. Running out to the gardens will be no help either, since they’re lit with suspended lanterns that are easily seen through the massive crystal windows. You could attempt to hide behind the orchestra towards the distant front of the ballroom, but you wouldn’t want to interrupt their swashbuckling string medleys! That would just be cruel.

You just have to hope you’re fast enough on your feet to duck away into the crowd! (You’re not very fast…)

Karkat’s taking it all in with an expression like he’s observing a carcass rapidly going through the decomposition process. You too, Karkat. You too.

Your first order of business should probably be to officially wish John a happy birthday, then help him pull whatever prank he’s inevitably planning. You’ll do it too, because it’s his special day! However, your task is interrupted when you spy somebody important through the crowd of people…

“Karkat!” you nudge him in the ribs. “That’s my dad over there. He’s talking to Mom. Oh, it looks like they just finished! I’ll introduce her once she leaves, I don’t want to chat with her right now.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t want to shoot the shit with Patrician Crocker either, she’s terrifying.” Karkat narrows his eyes, looking over the shoulder of some jadeblood. “Where?”

You point for clarification. Karkat directs his gaze to where you indicated, then spies your dad. He jumps with a horrible sort of surprise, then turns to you, his mouth skewed in terror. “Jade,” he whispers, like his voice got sucked out of him. “Why the *fuck* doesn’t your dad have a face?”

You shrug. “I dunno, he’s some minor demigod of an island or something.”

“What.” Karkat spits out, his eyes widening to new extremes. “What. You’re half. Demigod. What the fuck. What the *fuck.*”

You roll your eyes. There’s a reason you only say you’re a quarter werewolf! “Um! Quarter demigod, quarter werewolf, half human! I promise, the demigod thing doesn’t mean anything. It’s just how me and Jake have necromancy powers when not really any other humans have it. It’s usually just cerulean bloods and some super low spectrum trolls.”

“I never… knew that. Shitting toddlers, that’s absolutely-” Karkat rapidly jerks his head between you and your dad. Wow. “Oh. Shit. I think he’s looking at me. Or whatever he does. Oh goddesses, he’s sensing me, isn’t he, fuck, fuck, fuck-”

Dad isn’t really a fan of walking, so he just teleports in front of the two of you in a flash of green. Karkat shrieks in the way you would imagine a swan crying out its death throes. You elbow him in the side. You can’t worry about Karkat right now, it’s been forever since you’ve seen your dad! You hold out your arms, jump forward, and give Dad a big hug!

He’s just as warm and cozy as ever, and you’re all grins and nostalgia pulling back from the hug.

“Hi, Dad! It’s been forever! I’m so happy to see you. Do you remember Karkat? He used to be my knight. He’s helping me along on a journey I’m going to tell you all about.”

“███████████████████████████████” says your dad.

Well, that wasn’t a very nice thing to say. You thought he was over that ‘protective father’ phase he went through. Karkat didn’t seem to hear it though, he’s still frozen with his mouth stuck in a silent scream. Why does everybody seem to have that kind of reaction to your dad? It’s like he has mind control powers or something.

You stare at Karkat, waiting for him to reply for an awkward amount of time. Just as you’re about to cover for him, Feferi Peixes slams into existence behind Karkat.

Wow, that was sure forceful, she like, kicked two highbloods out of the way in a huge pink ballgown to get here. She looks very… determined. “Oh, hi Fefe-” you begin.

“Hi Jade, I’m seaprised you came! Sorry, can’t talk, have to save Karkat from thinkshell leakage! Have fun with your eldritch lusus!”

She yanks Karkat backwards through the crowd and he just barely manages to stumble onto his feet. They disappear. Um… Okay… Come to think of it, Feferi always does that with friends you try to introduce to your dad.

Well, whatever, you’ll find Karkat later!

“███████████████████████████████” says your dad.

“Oh, this? It’s a curse I got in a horrorterror temple! Karkat’s helping me keep it under control.”

“███████████████████████████████”

“Yeah, I guess he is pretty powerful. His blood must have a really interesting cocktail of magic dampening abilities!”

“███████████████████████████████”

That’s a weird thing to say about your curse… It’s just normal magic, albeit a really powerful sort, isn’t it?

“I don’t think it’s an elder god, I would have noticed.”

“███████████████████████████████”

“I have definitely not been possessed! Especially not by an elder god.”

“███████████████████████████████"

“If I get really upset or angry or something, then I start acting differently, but it’s still pretty much been… me. Karkat’s been doing a really good job of helping to keep it under control.”

“███████████████████████████████”

“Yeah, I like him in _that way_. But I’m pretty sure nothing's going to come of it. He’s too… troll-y?”

“███████████████████████████████”

“Dad, that is the worst dating advice I’ve ever heard.”

You and Dad talk a bit more, letting him know what you’ve been up to, and he tells you about the weirdo heavenly political drama that’s been going on. The afterlife plane for demigods is a silly place and you are determined never to go there. You say goodbye and give him another big hug when you see your mom coming back, and go to try to find Karkat.

You don’t get very far through the crowd when you feel a two-finger tap on your shoulder.

“< _Heeeeeeeey, Miss Starshine, what’s my favorite blood sister up to? >_”

You turn and take in the tipsy mess that is one of your brother’s potential fiancées: Vriska Serket. She’s clad in a beautiful golden sari, probably given to her by your mom, and swaying a little with a drink in her hand. You were never a big fan of Vriska, but she was always weirdly a big fan of you. You’re not sure if it’s because she’s trying to out-compete her broodmate-slash-romantic rival in familial connections or because she wants to bond with a fellow necromancer, but either way, it’s kind of weird!

“< _Hi Vriska. Can we talk later? I’m kind of looking for someone!_ >”

“ _< Oh? Is it your date? You got a quadrantmate?_ > ”

“< _Yes to the first part, kind-of-not-really to the second part. Anyway, I really got to go and find him, Feferi stole him. >_" _  
_

Vriska shimmies at you, her drink sloshing out of her champagne glass. “ _< Good luck getting him back, I know you’ll win! Oh, speaking of winning, guess who got engaged to the lucky birthday boy?_ >”

Vriska holds up her left hand, displaying a gold ring with intricate squiggly magical carvings all along the edges. Well… John actually likes Vriska, so this is a good thing? You give her a grin. “ _< Congratulations! Did Aranea give up?  >_”

“ _< Of course! She’s had a big job the last sweep or so, and she’s stopped coming back to the palace for visits lately. Let me tell you, absence does *not* make the heart grow fonder! It’s been a tough, long, battle, but I’ve finally come out on top!_ >”

You wonder what job Aranea got, but before you can ask, John drifts between the shoulders of two nobles nearby. It’s amazing how he can navigate a crowd like that, your half-brother is really a natural born royal!

“< _Hi ladies!_ >” he says, in bad Alternian. “< _I hate to interrupt, but I have some cakes that really need levitating…_ >”

Between getting swept away by random seadweller ambassadors, hanging out by the sweets table with Jane, and attempting to hide John from his cake-carrying dad four or five times (and totally failing), you get completely sidetracked from the ‘find Karkat’ quest. It only occurs to you about two hours in that you should probably force yourself away and make sure he’s not singlehandedly destroying peace treaties or something. You honestly wouldn’t put that past him. Karkat is like, the opposite of good manners.

He’s thankfully not chest-deep in civil war when you find him. Your face immediately breaks into a smile when you see him, and your heart swells, and… Wow, haha, you’ve got it bad, don’t you? C’mon, Jade, get it together, it’s only been two hours.

He’s standing by the hors d'oeuvres, shoveling his face full with the most contemplative look you’ve ever seen. Seriously, he looks like he just watched a man die.

He sees you come over and gives you a nod of acknowledgement. “Jade. Jade,” he says. Oh gosh, he never sounds like that, all flat and serious… What happened? He puts his hands on your shoulders, hurriedly chewing the last bite of his ladyfinger. “These… These fucking, tiny sandwiches, are the best thing I’ve ever had. They’re so… fucking… cute. I can’t take it, I feel like I’m going to explode in a petulant sack of elongated cooling vegetables.”

You stare at him in horror. That was clearly not the reaction he expected.

“No, no, Jade, you don’t understand. These are a godsend, an ambrosia in a decrepit smörgåsbord of fancy cheeses and inferior grubsauce. You *have* to try these.”

“Um… I already have? They’re just hors d'oeuvres. They’re at like, every party, everywhere, since the beginning of time!”

He backs off you, disgusted with your lack of appreciation for silly snacks. “Well, I wouldn’t know, not all of us can be so party-privileged.” He turns back to the spread and pops another sandwich into his mouth.

“What were you up to?” you ask.

“Literally stuffing my face for the past hour. Goddammit why wasn’t I born royalty?” He pauses to swipe another ladyfinger. “Before that, I pissed off an important dignitary, dueled and viscerally murdered at least two people by shoving swords through their tube chutes, and danced with no less than sixteen voluptuous beings of various species and genders, all of which I pailed the shit out of in the midst of a waltz.”

You’re shocked. “Really?”

“Holy shit, I can’t believe you fell for that.” He grins, despite himself. “You’re such a gullible fool.”

You fold your arms, only a little bit embarrassed. “Whatever! What did you really do?”

He shrugs. “I dunno. Mini-empress and her insufferable matesprit forced me to tell them the entirety of our journey in excruciating detail, then I bulged around, talked to some weird mages who live here, and turned down three dances from really attractive troll dudes.”

You give what you hope is a coy smile. “Why’d you turn down the troll dudes?”

“Are you serious right now?” He gestures at his leg brace. “Why do you think?”

“Pfft, whatever, you can totally still dance!” You bow to him, legs crossed, holding out your hand in the traditional offer to lead. You give him a big grin. “Don’t worry, Karkat, I have a plan!”

“Does your plan involve making me look like an idiot? Because…” his eyes flick to your mouth, he sighs, and grabs your offered hand. “Fine, whatever, I’ll subject myself to horrible death by dancing. Not like you just can’t bring me back as some kind of ballroom zombie and pretend it never happened.”

“C’mon, Karkat!” You straighten up, clasping his hand in yours and circling your left arm around his back. He still stays balanced on his cane. “Have a little faith.”

“Do I look like the kind of guy who even has a minute fraction of fucking faith?” He skews his mouth, and gives your hand a little squeeze. That sends shivers down your back as he does so. Jade Harley, you are an adult! Hand squeezes are no reason for nervousness!

You try not to think about how cute and how close he is. “You’re going to have to set your cane down though.”

“How the fuck-”

“Just put all your weight on my shoulder!” You wiggle it to demonstrate. “I can take it. I have so many muscles!”

Karkat shifts to his good leg, and hangs his cane under his belt like a sword. Karkat sways a bit, then rests his arm on your own, currently hooked around his back. He puts his hand a little farther down your shoulder blade for a follower, in preparation to distribute his weight evenly. He leans on you.

“Okay, not so bad.” He says.

Yeah, this isn’t difficult at all! He may be all muscle-mass, but you’re fucking ripped! “Oh, I probably should have asked this before… Do you know how to dance?”

He pauses. “Pathetically. Last time I danced was during some kind of training event and I looked like a grub flailing in three inches of water.”

You shrug your free shoulder. “Hey, don’t worry, me too!”

The music changes to an upbeat jaunty tune with a mandolin. You were taught this kind of song was supposed to be danced to with a quick, staggering, three-part step. You hope you still remember how to do it.

“Let’s dance, fuckass.” You say, and get all bubbly inside as his mouth twitches in an effort to restrain a smile.

You swivel towards the dance floor, take the first step with your lead foot, and smile as Karkat manages to beautifully follow your direction. You complete a full measure, a gentle rock on your non-dominant foot, then a step to the side. Karkat staggers on his weaker leg a bit, but keeps his weight mostly on you.

“Wow, okay,” says Karkat, his vision glued to his feet. “This is actually working.”

“Of course it is! I’m always right.”

You continue through the basic step until Karkat gets brave enough to actually look up at you. You giggle when you make eye contact.

“Why the fuck are you leading though?” he says. “I’m the best damn leader and I know you know that deep inside your miniature ineffective bloodpusher.”

“Um, because I’m a better lead, asshole!”

“How can you possibly know-”

You raise your arm on the long note, press Karkat in the small of his back, and twirl him outwards. He makes this little “guh” noise as you do it, afraid of leaving your shoulder. You pull him back in before the span of two beats is up. You catch him on your right as he comes in, taking on his weight once more. Goddess’ damned, you’re ripped. And awesome. Hell yeah.

You lead the next step and he follows a little late, choosing to complain instead of paying attention. “Fuck you, there is no iteration of this universe where cheating severe injury by spinning is acceptable.”

“Admit I’m a better lead or I’ll do it again!”

The corners of his mouth twitch, giving you the barest hint of a smile. “Your empty threats won’t bully this troll into submission. I’m the best leader this world has ever seen in its pitiful existence, and I don’t plan on-”

You do it again.

This time he doesn’t scream or anything, comes back into your arms with a smug look on his face. He’s getting pretty good at this following thing, but you’ll make fun of him for that later. Right now it’s time to boogie!

You try out your limited repertoire of moves: open position strut, promenade, the grubcleanser… Neither of you stumble on too many, and when one of you does you both laugh and keep up with the dance.

The song draws to a close, the notes becoming longer and longer in preparation for the end. You give him one last spin, pull him in, and, sure why not, dip him.

You put a little more effort into it than you usually would in case he can’t support his own weight. You pull his hand up as he comes in, tilt a little, and listen to the slight scream he gives as he falls back. He does manage to catch himself at the end, planting his foot down so you don’t have to hold him, and you pull off the dip perfectly.

He looks up at you, a hint of a smile grazing his face, sharp teeth peeking out all cute under his lips, his narrowed eyes shining with contentment. Oh, wow! He really enjoyed that, didn’t he? That makes your face light up in a big grin you can’t suppress, a burst of happiness that comes from deep inside you.

You’re about to pull him back up so you can high five him on a dance well done, but you stop when Karkat takes in a deep and sudden breath of air.

Something’s happening to Karkat, something weird that you’ve never seen on him before. His eyes open wide in quiet awe, his lips part in a small gesture of surprise, and his face just subtly tenses up. You watch something click together inside Karkat, a little spark of light in his widening pupils. It looks like he just solved some kind of mathematical theory, or a problem he’s been trying to work out for days.

His hand around your back goes tight, like he’s afraid of you slipping away. His eyes flicker around your face, trying desperately to search for some kind of answer. His breathing gets erratic, panicked, but he doesn’t look away from you.

You’re awfully confused, but you can’t bring yourself to say anything. Your eyes are locked on Karkat’s as he begins to breathlessly ramble to you.

“Jade, oh, god, Jade, I get it, I *get it,* I, I understand what you-

“I was an idiot, an idiot, fuck, are you still-

“do you still want-

“oh my god, I- hah- fuck- I’m messing this up, fuck-

“ _< Let me try that again._ >”

Karkat frees his hand from yours, closes his eyes shut tight, and summons up his strength with a big breath. When he opens his eyes again, he’s got a glare of determination that surprises you. He lifts his free hand up to your face, and very delicately, very carefully, cups your cheek with the lightest ‘pap.’ He presses against you, warm and calculated, and that’s when you know what he’s doing.

You can’t look away, you can’t lean in and bridge the distance, you can’t even fade into nervousness. He’s got you locked in his gaze that tightly, initiating a magnetic draw that you know you can’t leave.

And then, like he’s stating a fact, like he’s in awe of some great event, like he’s in awe of _you_ , he whispers,

“You’ll be the death of me.”

Well, not what you were expecting. But if that's a confession, you'll goddamn take it.

A calm storm of butterflies well up in your chest and it’s too much, it’s too much to stay here. You pull him up, slowly, into your arms, as everything else falls away around you. You bring him to you, his arm wrapping around your back for support and closeness, his hand still pressed against your cheek, and you keep your bodies close and tight.

“I will personally cause every one of your deaths from now until forever.” you whisper back.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.” he says.

As you look at him, the angry eyebrows even when he’s trying to be relaxed, the slight smile he’s no longer attempting to keep hidden, the stupid nubby horns that are trying to grow out of themselves, his cheeks that are slowly transitioning into a nice tomato color, those deep black pupils in a bed of red, you come to a terrible conclusion.

You’re going to kiss this boy.

There’s no way around it. It’s fucking started. That draw, that magnifying pull that comes with a first kiss with somebody you really, really like. Well, if you’re going to kiss him, there probably isn’t going to be a better time than right after you just dipped him romantically. Time for action, Jade Harley. You can do this.

You tilt your head, stand up on your toes just a little. Your heart does a flip at the look he gives you, the look that says he knows you’re going to smooch him, and he knows you know he knows, and he’s totally down with it. In fact, he looks more than down with it, he looks downright nervous and giddy and blushing, and oh fuck he is really okay with it, you weren't just hallucinating, he wants it too, _he wants it too_ , oh god…

You hug him as tight as you can. His eyes fall shut. Your lips part. He leans in. You’re nervous.

“< _What the fuck are you doin’ with my_ > wifemesis?”

You freeze two centimeters away.

Oh no.

Karkat Vantas, who was FINALLY ABOUT TO FUCKING KISS YOU, gets yanked away from you with a scream that SHOULD BE IN YOUR MOUTH RIGHT NOW. Wait, no, that’s wrong, you hope Karkat wasn’t going to scream in your mouth, but whatever! Not important! What is important is the fact that you are going to rustle up EVERY OUNCE OF YOUR NECROMANCY-

-to COMPLETELY DESTROY, WRECK, AND MURDER Eridan Ampora!


	29. Kicking Ass in All His Finery

Grimbarkness rushes through you and YOU DON’T EVEN CARE. Karkat, DEAR SWEET PRECIOUS FUCKING KARKAT, is currently being held hostage by someone absolutely awful! He’s being held in a low chokehold that he’s trying to desperately clamor out of but he can’t get a good stance and YOU NEED TO SAVE HIM! Your curse tells you you should probably murder Eridan.

“ _< Eridan Ampora, I am going to MURDER you!_ >”

“ _< What? Your Alternian fuckin’ sucks, Jade. That’s not the right ‘murder’ verb at all. Also, uh, know you’re not up to snuff on the quadrants but hate to inform you murder ruins the entire fuckin’ premise._ >”

“Please, Jade,” gasps Karkat, attempting to get his weight on his good foot so he can escape. “Calm down, calm the fuck down right now.”

“I will not calm down! I’m going to punch Eridan in the face so hard his skull is going to shoot out the back of the head and hit the douchebag emissary standing behind him and it’ll be two murders with one stone!”

“ _< Hey, seabiscuit,_ >” says Karkat, desperately. “ _< If you do not let me go right now, your fucking  >_ wifemesis, _< whatever that means, is going to rip this entire place to absolute shreds. I am going to uncharacteristically *beg* to whatever sensibility you’ve got left in that slurry filled thinkpan of yours to please, please let me go._ >”

Eridan looks at you, then back at Karkat, grimaces, and drops him from the chokehold.

Karkat stumbles forward in a short lunge, catching himself on your shoulders. You help him balance, even though your curse has switched its tune from ‘murder Eridan’ to ‘murder Karkat.’ Stop that, grimbarkness! You are not going to murder Karkat. He looks you dead in the eye, and, oh wow you just want to tackle him to the floor and JUST HAVE VIOLENT, BLACK SEX WITH-

“Jade, I’m here, I’m safe, and uh… I’m pretty sure I… reciprocate your feelings? Possibly? Oh, pus puking grubs that’s probably not comforting, I have no idea what I’m feeling or the terminology in Common to rip backwards out of- No, fuck it, I’m trying it anyway.”

He moves closer, pulls you in by the collar of your bolero, and looks at you with an absolute panic. He’s quiet, in a harsh way, as he starts to speak, making sure no potential Common speaking eavesdropper can hear what he’s saying. Although you’re pretty sure no one could understand him anyway because he’s talking WAY too fucking fast.

“Jade I would go to war in your name and carry your banner because I am suddenly so incredibly devoted it’s a wonder how I even existed without your divine presence in my life and okay I honestly might have felt like this before and now that I’m rattling it around in my thinkpan for two fucking seconds unlike usual I realize that I’m a fucking idiot who apparently just ripped himself out of the carcass of Alternian relationship standards using only my distressingly long keratin frond protectors and a picture of your face and it was amazing and incredible and so fucking brilliant that it is a shame I never burst out of that petulant flesh pocket earlier because I’ve been wallowing in a state of wrongness and rotting self-servitude since my bloodpusher decided to flip its alignment to ‘Jade Harley’ weeks ago, and I am so, so, unworthy of you and so, so lucky that you hold a little drop of your human emotions just for me, because I’m going to swallow all you decide to offer me starting right now to make up for lost time and *goddammit you’re beautiful.*”

Um.

Wow, you did not catch any of that except for the last three words. He like, sped through that so fast!

He blinks at you, breathing heavily. “Uh…” He exhales loudly. “Okay. Ignore that. That didn’t work. You are still gray. How do I get you ungrimbark. It is. Clearly not through. Feelings. Is there a password or something? Hamsteak. Grubwurst. Oh, wait, fuck, it’s probably-”

Karkat grabs your chin, tilts it towards him, leans in with a grimace, and you think he’s going to go for your mouth when he ducks to the side and kisses your scar instead.

His lips press against you hot and nervous, and that… oh… that makes a difference. That makes you flutter, that makes you remember yourself at age thirteen when everything was fresh and new and you thought cheek kisses were the epitome of romance. It’s warm and soft and so, so different from the pale kisses he’s given you before. As he pulls away, slowly, like he’s forcing himself to do so, you feel all that anger and grimbarkness just wash right off.

You can’t help but give an earnest little smile at him as he avoids your eyes. “You know, a kiss on the lips would have been even better! And super cliché, but you really like those.”

Karkat gives a guilty, flustered wince. “I want you to be one hundred percent your normal self for that.”

“ _< Stop talkin’ in your shit human language. I’m standin’ right here._ >”

Oh, right. You still have that cockblock to deal with. Karkat grits his teeth, then pivots, facing Eridan. Karkat rests his arm behind your shoulders, probably partly for balance, partly for closeness. And that last item makes you want to squeal in a silly display of how excited you feel, because _wow is this actually happening?_ Hahahahaha, you’re literally going to die from butterflies smothering your face and it hasn’t even really sunk in yet that you and Karkat might be becoming a thing?

It would probably be more cemented if this fucker didn’t interrupt your dance. You’re about to metaphorically rip Eridan a new one, but you hesitate. Indulging in your violent fantasy is probably not the best decision to make right now! There’s no telling what would stop you if Karkat’s blood is already ineffective. Going full grimbark in the middle of a crowded room is pretty scary to think about. You might just have to… play nice… Eugh.

Before you can think of some polite dismissal in Alternian, Karkat steps in.

“ _< What the ever-loving *fuck* is a_   > wifemesis?”

You want to profusely thank him for taking up the battle, but that would probably be an inappropriate public display of affection. Instead, you just start grinning.

Eridan crosses his arms, looks at Karkat like he’s a weed in his underwater garden. “ _< Who the hell are you, to be askin’ a noble that question? To be touchin’ a fuckin’ princess? I wouldn’t expect you to understand the concept anyway._ >”

“ _< Try me, just fucking try me.  >_”

“ _< It’s a happy combination of the most black hate known to trollkind and the human concept of_ > marriage. _< This makes it acceptable for inferior brains to grasp. It’s hella fucking weird that you can only be in one quadrant, though. I was helping defend Jade’s purity by pulling you away._ >”

You groan, loudly, so that everyone in a twenty foot radius can hear you. Karkat raises an eyebrow. “< _Look, troll-to-fucking-troll here, I am going to tell you with utter confidence that you are interpreting literally everything so wrong I’m surprised the universe hasn’t imploded with how deplorably incorrect you are._ >”

“ _< Also, we’re not even_ > married.” you say.

Eridan looks at you, then back at Karkat, then back at you, then smiles like he’s got some kind of brilliant, intellectual comeback. “ _< So, what quadrant of Jade’s are you in?_ >”

Oh, lame. Who even plays the jealousy card anymore? But to your surprise, Karkat takes the bait. He tenses up next to you, his hand pulling at your shoulder, his Alternian becoming thicker and harder to understand. “ _< Like I would possibly be ———————————— ———————— ————— ————— ——————— seadwelling piece of ———.  >_”

Whatever he said must have been pretty offensive, because Eridan takes Karkat’s own bait.

“ _< You’re going to eat those words, rustblood. You’re going to eat them because I will personally fuckin’ shove your tongue down your throat using my impressively sized elder wand._ >”

A crowd is starting to gather. Oh jeez, you’re causing a scene. Maybe you should tell Karkat to stop and just back off…

Karkat drops his arm from you in favor of pulling out his cane from his belt and planting it on the ground, allowing him to gesture more wildly. Wow. “ _< Ha, good luck with that, I’m-_ >”

“ _< A cane?_ >” Eridan gives him a look over with a face of disgust. “ _< Why haven’t you been culled? Run off to Jade for protection? You her pet or somethin’?_ >”

The crowd around the three of you is pretty big now, but the only one who laughs is Vriska, who’s nearby you on the edge. Ugh, she’s arm in arm with John, too. How can your brother even like her?

“ _< Fuck off, Eridan,_ >” you say. “< _Karkat’s a million times better than you in every way, shape, and form!_ >”

“ _< That’s a good insult, I think you’re gettin’ the hang of this kismesis thing. Although you haven’t really grasped the concept of ‘wife’ yet, so I might have to eliminate the competition here and now. Gotta maintain my stocks and all that._ >” He points at Karkat. “< _I cordially challenge you to a duel. >_”

You and Karkat side-eye each other. He is also very unimpressed! You’re glad he’s not going to participate in some dumb duel over you. Karkat pops an eyebrow at Eridan. “ _< Fuck no, why the hell would I even consider that?_ >”

Eridan is flabbergasted. His mouth gapes like… Well, like a fish. “ _< But… But I’m a noble. You have to accept._ >”

“ _< He’s got a right to say no!_ >” you say, stifling a laugh. This is the best insult Karkat could ever give Eridan.

Eridan is about to dig himself deeper, trying to scramble out of this mess he made, before Vriska interrupts him. Her words ring out against the mostly silent crowd and the quiet music drawing to a close. They echo around the ballroom, and have the side effect of pulling in every interested person in the area. They’re also indicative of what a huge bitch Vriska Serket is.

“ _< Yeah, Eridan! Don’t be a dick and pick on a helpless *cripple.*_ >”

Holy shit.

You watch Karkat’s eyebrows relax, fall back, his mouth go flat. He looks like he’s made peace with himself before going on a suicide mission. His eyes flare to Vriska, absolutely burning with a very subtle sort of rage.

John Egbert, your glorious, ill-timed brother, chooses this moment to agree with his asshole fiancée. “Yeah, Eridan, < _that’s just not fair!_ >”

You turn to Karkat, put a hand on his shoulder, and say the only thing you can say: “Karkat Vantas, you show those motherfuckers up.”

He nods, solemnly, as you back up into the crowd next to John. “ _< Alright, you’ve CODvinced me, you piece of FIN. I’m going to fuck you up so hard you’ll be for sale at the freshwater market Monday morning.  >_”

“ _< I’m native to saltwater!  >_”

“ _< Did I fucking stutter?  >_”

“ _< You don’t even have a sword, how are you going to-  >_”

“ _< I’ve got something better, don’t worry your slurry dumpster face about it._ >”

The crowd begins to clear a space for the duelists, and you scoot back with the rest of them. You’ve got a really good seat to watch Eridan get totally decimated. Hell yes! The musicians start playing some kind of generic pirate-y dueling song.

Eridan draws his heavy foil and gets into the traditional dueling pose first: one hand behind his back, sword arm slightly bent towards Karkat. Karkat gives him a look up and down, then mirrors Eridan’s pose. He places his right hand behind him, firmly grips his cane with his left, and aims it at Eridan just like a foil.

You decide he hasn’t had much training with this kind of dueling, since his stance is completely reversed and his sword arm is way too extended, but it does look pretty cool. You bet he’s got it backwards because he wants his good leg to be farther away from Eridan.

“ _< For the lady’s hand?  >_” says Eridan, glaring daggers.

To your surprise, you almost see Karkat agree. You see his mouth about to form into a ‘ _< yes,  >_’ his eyes dead serious, before they flick over to you. He must see something on your face because he switches his tone immediately.

“ _< Whatever,  >_” says Karkat. “< _Let’s get your horrendous loss over with and move the fuck on with our lives._ >”

Being John’s birthday, he gets to start the duel. He stands between the two, then claps his hands three times. “Alright, on three, everybody! _< Don’t get blood on the tile, Mom just had this redone last  >_ year.”

He backs up, letting the duelists bump their sword and cane together. Eridan looks smug, like he’s going to kick a puppy and get satisfaction out of everyone’s reactions. John counts to three in traditional Alternian…

As soon as he closes his mouth, Eridan thrusts his sword in for Karkat’s collarbone. You never got trained in sword dueling, so you’re not sure if it’s a good first move or not. Karkat easily dodges it by bending his knees a bit, then returns a lunge before Eridan can withdraw.

Eridan manages to stumble-dodge away from a hit, lifting his foil to parry and deflect, this time going for an underhand strike to the chest. Karkat meets him, the thick wood of his cane thunking against thin metal, then tries to get the upper hand by pivoting back on his right foot and striking lower. He doesn’t make it fast enough, and they both continue to parry and thrust back and forth.

You can tell Karkat’s not in his element. Heck, he might have never even done this style of duel before, because he’s not at his usual level of quick thinking. But he's holding his own, expertly combating Eridan even though he can't move his legs as dexterously or as fast. He’s grimacing, but not backing down, and you’ve got no doubt he’s going to win. You’re not even worried in the least! Now everyone gets to see how cool Karkat is. John and Vriska, for instance, are both staring open mouthed at the scene.

You’ve really got the _best_ boyfri- whoa, hold on, Jade. Jumping to conclusions a bit there? Stop that!

You see Eridan wince after an especially strong blow, and his eyes flash with rage. He goes in for a cheap shot to the upper thigh, where all of Karkat’s weight is being distributed. With a grin, Karkat deflects, and completely takes Eridan’s sword arm out of the picture by parrying his foil far to the right.

The crowd applauds as Karkat thrusts the tip of his cane flat against Eridan’s throat. “ _< I win, fishsticks._ >”

You can see Eridan swallow, his Adams apple just grazing the end of Karkat’s cane. He’s wide-eyed and a mess, and as Karkat lowers his cane, it takes him a great amount of effort to say, “ _< I claim right to cull. He’s an invalid and a rustblood, I have the right._ >”

“ _< You can’t do that,_ >” you say, walking over to stand next to Karkat. “ _< The cull-status of his body is overruled by my decree!  >"_

Eridan glares at you, a hiss in his voice, “ _< Alright, fine, princess, I’ll accept that. But, wait, hold on, is this fucker even in Alternian territory legally?  >_”

“ _< Of course he is! We got a border pass and everything! Show him the pass, Karkat._ >”

You look over at Karkat, who is nervously glaring at the tile underneath him. Uh oh. “Well, Jade, I can’t believe my own ineptitude right now. I left it in my block.”

You facepalm. “Karkat. We went through a whole sidequest to get that thing, and you didn’t bring it to _the one place that matters_? Haven’t you ever heard of Chekhov’s gun? We're supposed to, you know, actually use the stupid item we picked up!”

“Yes, I’ve heard of Chekhov’s gun, you absolute fuckwit, I read more than you. It’s not my fault this outfit defies all absolute logical explanation and lacks pockets. Doesn’t have a one. Where would I even put the card? Between the tender folds of my nook? Fuck no, that’s not-”

“< _Look, does he have the fuckin’ pass or not?_ >”

You can only stutter. “Um.”

Eridan curls his lip, his teeth pulling up like he’s about to chomp into some delicious meat. “< _I claim right to cull._ >”

Eridan draws out his Empiricist's wand, a powerful heirloom you know has been passed through his bloodline for generations. The crowd behind you and Karkat scatter in a mass of screams, minus your dad, who apparently doesn’t want to move and remains firmly planted in his spot near Karkat, sipping champagne through his… face. Karkat gently nudges you away, towards John and Vriska, and you comply. Karkat might be immune to magic, but you sure aren’t!

John wraps his arms around your shoulder in a misguided sense of brotherly protection. Gosh, John, you’re not going to get hit! Eridan’s magic is going to end up somewhere behind Karkat, not to the side of him. Eridan is clearly unaware Karkat is from the same brood as Kankri Vantas. This is going to be hilarious.

“< _Facin’ your death, lowblood._ >” Eridan says, shutting one eye like he’s aiming a pistol. “ _< You’re braver than I thought.  >_”

Karkat shrugs, then flips him the bird. “ _< Braver than ——————————— ————————— ———— ——— —————, anyway._ >”

You hear a few gasps from the trollian parts of he crowd. Whatever he said makes Eridan absolutely livid. He screams, and not in a silly, high pitched way, like you would have expected from him, but a sound that is filled with so much rage you’re surprised he’s not going to try and pummel Karkat to death with his fists. Eridan snaps his wrist with the force of a whip, sending a coiling purple bullet of magic straight to the heart of Karkat.

It explodes as soon as it hits him, with a sound like white hot metal being thrown into water. Gargantuan clouds of smoke plume off of him, obscuring Karkat completely. Purple flames burst in patches off the tops of the smoke, causing parts of the side of the crowd closer to the explosion to start to choke.

You don’t have to wait long to know the fate of him, because he steps out of the cloud with a tap of his cane that echoes throughout the silently coughing crowd. You can literally hear a few hundred pairs of eyes shift simultaneously towards Karkat, smoke pluming out around him. And oh god, Karkat is literally on fire.

Not his skin or his hair, those things are fine, but purple flames lap up and consume the thicker layers of his clothing. The stuff closer to his blood and flesh must receive minor magical immunity? They flicker across his thick jacket, curling up the fabric and flaking it off into burnt ashes. They work up his boots and leg brace, singing the material with their magical heat. They selectively rip apart his black overshirt, leaving only red and white material behind. The flames leave his trousers alone, however, which gives an interesting insight into the state of Karkat’s undergarments. Or lack of them. Hell. Yes.

Karkat would look incredibly badass, on fire and walking away from the explosion, if he didn’t look one hundred percent done with the world. He sighs, flames burning off the edges of his collar, looks at your dad who apparently put up some sort of barrier in favor of not walking to a safer place, salutes him, and plucks his champagne from the air. The champagne glass immediately bursts into flames, which does not stop Karkat from downing the alcohol anyway.

He drops it on the ground as the glass melts, marches very determinately towards a paralyzed Eridan, slips his cane under his arm, and fucking DECKS Eridan in the face.

“Yeah!” you scream, pumping your fists as your douchebag fiancée topples to the ground. You see a fist-sized burn mark singe itself onto Eridan’s face. “Yeah! Yes! Go Karkat!”

You’re the only one making noise. Karkat turns to you, gives an angry little grin and an angry little wave, and you smile right back. You hear John groan next to you.

“Enough.” The voice of your mom carries through the whole dance floor, and all eyes turn to Patrician Crocker.

She gestures towards one of her clerks in the midst of the crowd, gives an indistinguishable little nod that probably has a thousand different meanings, and looks straight at you. You narrow your eyes at her. She narrows them right back. The clerk reaches Eridan, picks him up like a bride, and carries him somewhere else. Probably going to dump him outside.

You nod solemnly at your mom in a gesture of thanks. She nods right back, accepting your gratitude. You give appreciation where appreciation is due! Even if your mom is kind of mean.

She disperses into the crowd, and the music and the rest of the dance pick up within thirty seconds as if nothing had ever happened.

Karkat walks over to you, through the mass of people suddenly chatting in-between the two of you, clothing singed in an incredible amount of places, and blows his bangs out of his eyes.

“So.”

“So?”

He stares at you for a weird amount of time, but not in a lovey-dovey sort of way, more like a ‘when did you get here?’ sort of way. You notice his pupils keep focusing in and out on you.

“Is something wrong, Karkat?”

Karkat narrows his eyes. “Your dad… was not drinking champagne.”

“What?”

“That was definitely hard fucking liquor, hard as a pheromonal bulge. And I do not even have a minute fraction of the tolerance your family apparently possesses. I am going to be very, very, *very* inebriated in about twenty seconds.”

“Oh.” You shrug, happily. You’re in a good mood! “Well, Karkat, damned if I’m not coming with you! Let’s get wasted. In celebration of you being awesome in every way!”

You tug him over towards the buffet, his glove hot against your palm.


	30. Must Have Been Some Party Though, Right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This chapter is semi-NSFW**

You stir from your black, heavy sleep to the severe pangs of a hangover. Yuck, everything feels like you just ran yourself through a meat grinder. You want to sleep forever and ever and then never wake up for fear of terrible nausea. You really must have drank a lot!

But you feel some other things too, types of hurt that you generally don’t feel after getting totally hammered. Your neck feels sore like someone wrung it out in the wash. Your back feels like someone just ran over it with a cheesegrater. Your lips feel like they’ve been chapped for three days and you desperately need to put balm on them. Something isn’t right.

You expend a great amount of effort opening your eyes.

Well. 

Shit.

If you fucked Karkat Vantas, and you don’t remember it, you are going to be so mad with yourself.

You sit up very carefully, partly because your head hurts, partly because you really don’t want to wake up Karkat right now. You rub the front of your neck, and a hell of a lot of tiny scabs and bruises flare pain right back at you. Holy fucking shit, how violent did you get last night?

Hmm… violent drunk sex doesn’t seem like you, and it doesn’t seem like Karkat. You remember trolls generally being really sharp to sleep with (the teeth thing is understandable, but why can’t they just trim their nails?), but not _this_ sharp. Was he just really sloppy? You narrow your eyes at his teeth. Uh, yeah, sloppiness could really cut you up there. Note to self: No more drunk sex with Karkat.

Although… did you actually have drunk sex? You give yourself a pat under the waistband to check for undies and, yup, they’re still on. You can feel Karkat’s leg brace against your calf as well, so you can probably assume his pants didn’t come off either. Okay, so, what happened?

You close your eyes, ignoring the throbbing pain that comes with thinking, and try to remember what happened last night.

Okay, you left the dance, and then you decided to… oh, yeah, and then in the hallway… and then he said… and then…

You sigh with relief. No sexing happened last night! You are free to snuggle back into Karkat and sleep forever and ever, or until he wakes up and also freaks out. Which, uh, might be right now, judging by the sharp intake of air flaring his nostrils.

Karkats eyes groggily open, blink at you a few times, and then he sighs and tries to sink further into the sopor. Which doesn’t work because you’re kind of locking him in place with your thighs. Also, wow, that is the worst reaction to surprise waking up in bed with a good friend you’ve ever seen. You don’t even know how to respond to that, it’s so lazy it’s almost criminal.

You wait for a few seconds, wondering if you should get out of the tub, before Karkat jolts up with a very loud scream. Oh goddesses that hurts your hangover.

Karkat claws at his own face, wide eyed and totally overreacting, yelling incoherent obscenities at you. “What the fuck, what, the fuck, Jade, you’re here, you’re here and you’re buttfucking naked and, *why* and holy shit, *did I hurt you—*”

Karkat gives you mood whiplash with how quickly he transitions from shouty mcshout pants to the kind of character you would imagine being in a brooding romance novel. He gets so quiet and tense, his hands dropping from his face and starting to reach out towards yours, visibly shaking with a terrible sort of fear. “Did I hurt you? I hurt you, oh Jade, you’re bruised and cut and… and *marked* all over, I didn’t have the right, I didn’t have the fucking right, I should have never-”

“Karkat, relax.” You grab his hands in yours to still them. “I wanted it, it felt good last night.”

“Oh.” He says, calming down immensely. “Still… I can’t fucking believe I… Okay, well, my thinkpan hurts like Death themselves took a dump in it, and I am going to empty the contents of my digestion sac soon. Uh, very soon.”

You scramble off his lap as he lurches out of the tub and towards the window. He unlatches the hatch, sticks his head out, and does exactly what he intended. You hear something splat and a shout from far away, and Karkat yells, “Fuck you, buddy, I’m royal!” before shutting the window. 

He doesn’t get back in the tub, choosing to lean forward from where he’s standing instead. His strong shoulder blades buckle under the skin of his back as he braces his arms against the window. Without looking at you, he says, in a voice that he would probably use if he were giving a speech at a funeral, “Did we…?”

“No, we didn’t.”

You watch him sigh with an almost invisible sort of relief. He shoots his head up, confusion written all over his face. “So, if you don’t mind me asking, how the hell did we end up in our wriggling day suits if nothing happened? Pretty sure at least something had to happen, unless if the thing that happened was that you got in a deadly necking battle with a vacuous cleaning device equipped with knives.”

“Sorry, Karkat, the only vacuous cleaning device in the place was you!” You smile as he gets back in the tub across from you. “I remember it pretty well, I’ll tell you what happened.”

His legs are in-between yours as you sit on opposite sides, backs against the edges of the tub. “Okay, keep your voice down though, I feel like a pile of neighbeast’s shit.”

“Of course! Anyway, this story doesn’t really start until we left the dance…”

**********

WOW, like, Karkat?? Is really drunk! Hehe, you decided to, maybe, leave the party after you both tried to, um… slam down a bunch of party cocktails in a super duper battle royale!!! You totally won by like, six drinks. Of course. Karkat is such a lightweight.

You said you’d walk him back to his cozy room! Like a good gentlewoman! You’re the best host! But gosh, this hallway is sure loooooooonnnggg and daarrrrkkk. Nobody’s around if you were to like, fall over or something. Then who would be a good party escort? Ghosts? Pssshhhh.

He’s sooooo heavy though. He’s so heavy that YOU’RE starting to feel all heavy. He’s like, rubbing his drunkness off of you or something! He’s also leaning on you instead of his… instead of his stick thing. He’s been talking to you like, this entire time, and it’s all really silly stuff!

“Jade, Jade, let’s be in every quadrant, let’s vacillate between every fucking square on determined calendar days. And we can pick like, a random third leaf. On Wednesdays. Wednesday is auspice day.”

“Karkat, we can’t be in every quadrant! You’d haaaaaate that!” 

“Jade, Jade, my night sky, my moon and stars, the fucking pinhole of light in my life, don’t talk shit when you don’t know me.”

He stumbles against you, and you follow his lead! You fall against the wall and turn your back to it and he ends up leaning up around you like a bad boy cornering the nice girl after magic lessons behind the dojo bleachers! He’s looking at you like he wants to eat you up! Yuuuuuum!!!

“Why do you keep calling me that?” you whisper, tugging ever so subtly on his collar. You’re the master of seduction, it is you.

He doesn’t even resist! He just dives in for you! Wow, easy target! “Calling you what?”

“Moon and stars! It’s silly!”

He puts his mouth against your neck and you feel teeth and oooooohhhhhh that’s so good! He really does want to eat you up! “Whaaaaat? I can’t believe you don’t fucking remember!” 

He actually pauses to lick your throat! Like all the way from the bottom to your jawline! You tilt your head up and giggle with how wet you get… not just on your throat, hehehe. Wow that was the best euphemism metaphor you’ve ever thought of ever. And so original. You’re like an erotic master when you’re drunk!!! 

Karkat’s lips move against your jawline all nice and soft. “I thought you’d taste like flowers shitting out daises or something but you just taste like salt. Boring.”

“That’s the taste of an adventurer! Oh gosh, Karkat, keep doing that, it feels sooooo good.” You giggle with every bite he gives you down your neck. They’re so sharp and give you all these sensitive little wiggles! “Anyway yeah I forgot! Tell meeeeeeeeee.”

“Fiiiiiiiiine,” he slides his hand down your shoulder and his nails are so deliciously sharp and whoop! There goes your bolero! Right on the floor in the middle of the hallway! (You might have unbuckled it previously just a little hehehe). “It’s from that poem I read you, when we first started, remember? Anyway it’s fucking poignant and it’s a shame you didn’t realize how relate-able it is. A shame. A SHAME!”

“Shhhhhhhhhhh Karkat, people are sleeping,” you giggle as he smooches down your collarbone. He’s biting and sucking with these cute little noises all the way too! It’s sooooo good, you wiggle against him to let him know how good it is. Subtly! Subtle wiggles. “Karkat! Karkat, say that word again, ‘poignant,’ it sounds so cool when you say it with your accent!”

Karkat gives this dark little chuckle, which is sooooo cute and also hot you kinda wish you were sober to hear it because what if you don’t remember it, and wish he was sober too because it would be sooooo much better if it were genuine. He moves up to your ear, smooshing his face against your fur.

“Poignant,” he whispers. 

You squeal with all the warm fuzzies that shoot down you! Wow!

“Poignant. Poooooooooignant.”

You can’t stop the giggles as you press in cloooossserr, and suddenly his thigh is between your legs and oh woooow you’re sensitive and hot and yeah toooottallyy wet. Karkat lifts his head from your ear (but not his leg, where it counts!) and you make a pouty face as he super sexily smirks at you.

“Mmmmmmmm, moon and stars, I’m totally getting you off, aren’t I? *Fucking nailed it.*”

He presses his thigh up against you some more and hahahaha ooooh nooo hello clitoris and all its feelings. He is too suave under the influence! 

“Pssh, don’t get so full of yourself!!! I haven’t masturbated in like, months. Months! Because of yooooooooou, you asshole.”

Hahaha Karkat must be really drunk because he doesn’t even get embarrassed in the slightest! If he was sober he’d be totally blushing up a storm and stuttering. He just narrows his eyes. “Why didn’t you… do it today?”

You were way too busy piling up your massive squiddle collection on your bed to even think about sex stuff! “Uurrrrmmmmmm… Because I’m an adult with adult priorities? Either way, totally sexually tense right now! Hint hint.”

He rolls his eyes with the most exaggerated motion you’ve ever seen, and then he says something like, “I can help with that.” 

You kind of black out for a bit there! Oops! Maybe you drank a little too much! Naww, not possible.

You come back pretty quick though, maybe, and you’ve got something soft against your back and something soft on top of you! (The top of you one is Karkat. Just FYI.) You think you’re on his pile in his room? Oooo, Karkat, pailing on a pale pile? Kinky!!!

Hmm, okay okay, you think you might be kissing? His teeth are kind of sharp and like, everywhere on your mouth. You’re not sure, but you like it! So warm, and so Karkat. He smells so good too, like super strong, like baked cinnamon cookies! You love cinnamon!

“Karkat!” you command. “Unbuckle my dress clasps!”

He flops against you, wait how is he shirtless, can he even function?? Gosh, what a silly drunk! “I don’t fucking know where they are!”

“Oh my goooooosssshhh they’re right. Here!”

You give up. He’s way too hard to communicate with when he’s drunk! You’ll do them yourself. You unhook the little metaly thingys down your side. “Here you go!”

He tries to grab the top of your dress, but can’t find it! Haha. He finally manages to slip it down your body after a whole lot of effort! You’ve still got your undies on though, which have totally got to go!

But ohhhhh he’s exploring you, and he’s so clumsy about it, and his hands are quivering over your boobs and you just wanna say ‘yeah stop right there and rub Karkat, you clueless troll’ but your mouth isn’t functioning because you’re giggling too hard from how turned on you are. You hope he’s turned on too! Oh yeah, he is, because he smells all weeeeiirrdd and nicccceee, you should probably touch his dick. Yeah! Dicks!

But just as you reach down, his hands stop sliding over your ribs. You can feel him shudder, what’s going on? “We can’t, Jade, we can’t. I don’t know about you, but I am drunk as fuck! As fuck!”

“That is soooooo drunk!”

“Yeah! We have to… we have to do this when we’re coherent, when I can, can fucking remember shit.”

“I can remember for the both of us!”

“No, no, that’s not good enough!” he falls into your shoulder, planting more sharp kisses on your neck. Hahaha, Karkat, that’s not a very good way to stop someone from being turned on. “I really, really, want to experience you, I’d never forgive myself if I forgot our first fucking time being intimate, I might reignite that hate crush on my own self if I pailed you right now.”

You ruffle his hair and giggle. “Oooookay, that’s acceptable!”

“And we gotta talk about it, we gotta talk about it. Got something important to tell you.” Another few kisses, and he pulls up up up, taking you with him and you both stumble to your feet! “And like, I am not coherent enough to grab a pail and would totally stain the pillows and then your mom would slaughter me.”

You push him backwards into the silly troll sopor tub. “Noooo, I’d be your bucket, and you can totally fill me up, and nothing will get on the pillows! I know a spell for that.” You wink at him, you think, but he’s already collapsed backwards into the sopor and not looking at you. 

“Jade… My slurry is immune to magic.” He says, all cute and half-lidded. “Also, why the fuck do you know a spell for come inflation.”

You’re about to retort by asking ‘why the fuck do you know your jizz is immune to magic’ but he’s already out like a light!!! Oh nooooo! You’d better go to bed too. It’s way too late for a princess to be up. It’s like, a billion AM in the morning. You step into the weird troll bed, and fall comfortably on top of Karkat. You hope he doesn’t mind!

**********

“… and then I fell asleep. And here we are! Ha ha.”

Karkat stares at you from across the tub like you just lit on fire and he doesn’t know what to do about it. You’re pretty sure he’s not horrified about the story you just told (okay, maybe a little), since he’s not really looking at you. Well, he’s looking in your general direction, but he’s clearly not focused. This is probably because he’s started to do something. Something really troll-ish that he knows you’re aware of, especially considering it was a plot point in your story.

His pheromones have activated.

It’s thick and it permeates the air with an ever present reminder of what Karkat’s thinking about. And you don’t really mind his smell, you actually kind of like it since it’s very _him_ , but it’s still a little bit embarrassing for the both of you. Maybe really embarrassing. 

It’s really, really strong, filling up the space between the two of you with that odd cinnamon-y and copper smell. Did you tell the story too erotically? Was it the come inflation thing? Okay, maybe you went a little overboard on the details. You couldn’t help it, you want him to repeat last night’s events SO BAD. Once more, with feeling.

And he clearly wants to… mate with you.

Finally, after a very tense silence, he stammers out a quick, “Sorry for biting you.”

“That’s okay, I like it.” you blurt out at the exact same speed.

You both look away from each other with a quick turn of your heads. It doesn’t really help to lose eye contact with him because the tub is too short to each get your own space, so your legs are kind of interlinked together as you each lean against your respective sides. You can feel the panels of his brace against your calf, you can feel the warmth even under the neutral temperature of the sopor, and you bite your lip with nervousness. This is ridiculous! You are sharing a bed with each other, you’re already pretty much naked, you literally want to fuck this guy and he clearly is into that too at the moment! You need to grow a pair of labia and just ask already!!! Go, Jade! You can do it!

“Karkat,” you say, and it comes out way too quiet for a proposition. “I know we’re kind of hungover and your mouth probably tastes like throw up, but I don’t really care. Can we have sex?”

Karkat shoots his head towards you, and his eye twitches with an extreme sort of pain. You can tell it takes him a great amount of effort to spit out the word, “No.”

What THE FUCK. You smack your hands against the surface of the sopor in HOT RAGE! “Why not!? What is WRONG with you!”

You cover your hands with your mouth when you realize what you said. You glance down at your arm, little gray blotches growing down from your shoulder. “Oh god, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that… Nothing’s wrong with you, Karkat, I just want to know why you said no.”

Karkat opens his mouth to respond, then his eyes shift to your cheek. “Shit, I didn’t draw on you last night, did I? We have to do that before… before you snap and rip out my bloodpusher… Would you, uh, would you… come here?”

You don’t look at him as you shift onto your knees, keeping your eyes locked on the surface of the sopor. You place each hand on the side of the tub to keep yourself steady, and tilt your cheek towards Karkat. You’re not sure if he’s looking, you don’t want to know, you’re already straddling one of his thighs and that’s-

You feel Karkat’s arm shift under the sopor, and, slowed down by the thick weight of it, he wraps it around your waist. You shudder a little, in a good way, as his palm slides against your ribs. Then he pulls you towards him.

You have to move your legs a bit to accomplish it, but you end up straddling him as he leans back against the tub. You’re keeping your weight fully on your knees as he scoots up a bit so he’s just under eye level with you, so you don’t have crotch-to-crotch contact. Which you kind of want. Badly.

Aw, fuck it. Time to go for it. 

You sit your butt down in his lap and he makes this really cute, surprised peep. And, oh, yup, he definitely has a troll boner. You can feel the lump press against your undies, as blood starts to flow in places you haven’t truly paid attention to in months. You go from 0 to turned the fuck on in about two seconds.

“I’m sorry,” he hurriedly says. “Oh, goddess, I’m sorry, I’m so, fuck, let me just get this over with-”

“No. Take your time.” you say. You rest your hands on his bare shoulders, gaining more confidence from your shared nervousness. “Karkat, I really…” you sigh, your head pounding with all the built up _need_ rushing through you. Your breaths start getting heavier, your heart pumping with a whole lot more than butterflies.“I really, really want you, you know that, right?”

Karkat haphazardly bites down on the scab on his ring finger, drawing forth a bead of blood. His gaze is everywhere on your face but your eyes. “I do, I do, I’d… Ugh, fuck, you know I want you too? You know I’m absolutely lost in you? You know I’d drown in you without a second thought?”

Ohhhhhhh god, you weren’t expecting this much romance with your need for a good round of sex, and you have to close your eyes to stop yourself from pushing his hands away and violently kissing him. He starts to draw the familiar first line down your cheek, shaking but careful, and it burns against you with much more heat than usual. “Karkat, that’s… really romantic. I couldn’t ever talk like that.”

“Do you like it? Jade, the words I have for you, the fucking vocab I could pull out of the very ass-backwards crevices of Common just for you…”

His bulge _moves_ against you, right up against the best possible place it could rub, and you wonder why the hell you were ever opposed to troll genitalia. There are two layers of fabric and a leg brace separating the both of you and you want to get rid of them immediately but all you can do is bite back a moan as he starts the second line.

“I like it, I really, really like it. But, Karkat, I can’t say those kind of things back, I’m so much better with… with my body than with words. I’m so physical, and I want to touch you and kiss you and fuck you into understanding how I feel, so… so why don’t you… why don’t you want to…?”

You want to finish that sentence with a nice synonym for ‘fuck,’ something hot like ‘make love,’ something that’ll make him shiver even more than he already is, but your brain seems to be somewhere else at the moment. You unconsciously grind yourself against his bulge, warmth from the feel of him echoing all the way up from your clit. You realize a little too late that maybe your motion was harder than what most trolls like, but all Karkat does is choke out a very pleasant gasp. 

“I, oh, god, I-I can’t… We can’t. We can’t right now, because I have something *really* important to tell you about myself,” He reaches an arm out from under the sopor and clutches the back of your hair as he starts the final squiggle down the middle of your scar. “A-and as much… As much as I want to pail you, this is a deal breaker. Like, shatter any future relations into smithereens kind of deal breaker. And it’s best done when we don’t have the extreme desire to fuck each other until we’re rubbed blazing sore.”

Fucking each other incredibly hard sounds amazing right now. You look at him with what is hopefully a ‘please elaborate’ look, but is probably a ‘I am needy and want you inside me’ kind of face. He finishes the line with a dot, and removes his hand with a deep, quivering breath.

“Karkat,” you say, and you stroke your hands down his neck and oh, that helpless shiver he gives you is so nice, he has to close his eyes to stop himself from pulling you in. “Karkat, there is nothing, absolutely nothing you could say, that would stop me from wanting you this bad. Not even if your dick shot fire when you came, or if your leg is a blunderbuss, or if you are actually a lizard person. Literally nothing would stop me. Tell me, right now. Please.”

Karkat gives this desperate little laugh, and he cups your face, gently running his hand down your cheek. “You’re too fucking good, far superior to any mortal I’ve encountered. Alright. Alright, you’ve won. Do you remember when-”

You hear the door open. _Fuck._


	31. Overprotective

Karkat immediately yanks you into a protective hug, this absolutely _carnal_ dual-toned growl echoing from his throat at whoever just came into your room. Lord. Is that a natural reaction trolls have to getting interrupted? It’s incredibly hot. 

“Karkat, you are not royal, and please don’t vomit out the window, it’s a good thing I have- Wait, what are you doing to Jade!?”

You rotate towards the intruder, breaking Karkat’s hug, and glare at your dumbass half-brother, who is currently standing open mouthed and horrified in the door frame. “John! Get out!”

John stares at you for a few seconds, apparently struggling with turning away or saying something, before narrowing his eyes in a very real sort of anger. “He hurt you. He hurt you, you’re bleeding! I knew there was something suspicious going on but I didn’t think it was like this!”

Karkat tenses up underneath you, in the way a cat would when it gets frightened. Ugh, no, this is the worst! You don’t want John to think something abusive is going on, and you don’t want Karkat to think he’s too sharp and pointy to be with you! You stand up out of the tub, necromancy at the ready to hurl random parts of the bedroom at your dumbass half-brother. “John, no, that’s not at all what-”

John was apparently going to fire wind at you or something, but you standing up causes him to generate a literal galestorm. The door slams shut behind him, the sopor waves over the side of the tub, and you go tumble-flying out of it in a huge mess of wind. Everything becomes a spinning blur as you fall into the pile of pillows near the tub, and oh gods that’s not doing good things to your stomach…

You can’t do anything but watch as you try to stop your head from spinning. Clouds begin to roil over John’s head, the smell of a salty typhoon fills the room, and the light from the window is blocked by a sudden fog. Your hair flies up and around you in a violent whirl, and John’s eyes blaze with blue. Karkat, who is apparently supposed to be at the center of your brother’s spell, is totally unaffected by any wind or electricity or other storm element John has generated, everything around him stock still and clear. He’s gaping at John, arms bracing against the back of the recuperacoon, unsure of what to do.

“Oh, no, Jade, you’re hurt all over the front too!” His voice comes out like a tornado. “I’m sorry for looking at your boobs but it was totally necessary to gather evidence so I have the right to _beat up this dumbass_! God, Karkat, I thought you were different than those other crazy trolls but I was dead fucking wrong! I will _not_ let my sister get pushed around by an abusive-”

John is interrupted by you necromancy-cannoning about twenty pillows at his face. They all hit their target simultaneously in a satisfying ‘doof.’

“Ow.” says John, his eyes regaining pupils and the room returning to normal.

“John, stop!” you say, and wow, that came out too loud. Ugh, your head hurts so much! You guess all the drama with Karkat was distracting you from this super headache. “You are jumping to conclusions, I’m totally fine! I like getting bit and scratched and stuff, we just got kind of sloppy last night.”

John sticks his tongue out. “Bleh, did not need to know that. And, uh, excuse me, but you are not fine! That’s way too many bruises for my dear sweet innocent sister, Karkat is totally brainwashing you.”

“Seriously? He is not brainwashing me! You really think Karkat has the desire to manipulate his friends?”

John folds his arms, tapping his foot and making ‘I’m thinking’ motions with his eyeballs. Wow.

“Hmm, I guess not. He’s way too much of a big goober to even think about manipulating people. He’s got the subtlety of a rampaging cow!” John looks at Karkat, then back at you, then says, “Jade, you need better hobbies.”

You facepalm, audibly. You really want him to leave you alone so you and Karkat can resume the festivities. Although your head is really, really pounding, and you’re not feeling so _needy_ anymore after this interruption. In fact, you aren’t feeling anything much at all besides for a killer hangover. Maybe you guys can skip the sex and just snuggle? Or do some other sweet, slow sexy stuff that doesn’t require a lot of movement? And Karkat can tell you whatever he was going to tell you. But before you can tell John to go do something else, Karkat stands up from the tub to interject.

“Jade doesn’t need better hobbies, numbnuts, maybe you’re the one that needs a reality check. Surprise, biting is a thing that normal people do, get over it you hapless virgin.”

Oh no… Karkat is loud and starting an argument. Why is he doing this? John just laughs in reply. “Ha ha, virgin? Okay, Karkat ‘I’ve literally only had one girlfriend in my life and I dated her like three times because I’m afraid of change’ Vantas.”

“Twice, I was flush with Terezi *twice,* and the second was a hilarious superficial pity due to my piece of shit leg, and we’re so over it’s not even-”

“You’re bitter because you’re totally scared of scoring with Jade! She’s too good for you and will probably run away at the first chance.” He nods at you. “You’re too good for him and should run away at the first chance.”

Karkat angles himself up to sit on the weird recuperacoon pillow things. “I am going to tackle you to the floor and not stop punching you until you shit your innards out your mouth hole, after which I will-”

Aaaaaandd… they keep going. Your head is throbbing like John is taking his hammer to your ears and you need to get the fuck out of here. Your brain is going to dribble out of your mouth in a pile of hangover vomit at this rate. Whatever you and Karkat were going to do can wait, you need to get some water and take a friggin’ nap in your own bed.

You look around for your dress on the floor, spot it, and hitch it up in a practiced motion. You are so good at finding clothes after nightly flings, it’s incredible.

“-Dude, Karkat, is this a hate flirt thing? Because I thought you were over that.”

“That was for one fucking perigree, one, and your clingy human thinkpan can’t seem to let it out of your sweaty baby clutches. You are so beneath my gaze it’s not even-”

Okay, yes, good, everything is securely in place for your walk of shame. “Um, guys? I’m going to go to my room and take a nap. Bye.”

Neither Karkat or John notice, apparently enamored with whatever they’re arguing about. Bleh. You’ll have to catch Karkat later when your brother isn’t cockblocking you. You’ll let them talk, Karkat never gets to see John and you think they like each other. You’re… fairly certain they like each other, anyway.

You don’t meet many passers-by in the hallways, and the few that you do see immediately make eye contact with your neck and do not look away. Good thing your usual choice of dress has a high collar! It’s a super secret between you and Karkat, because he kissed you all over last night and he liked it and you liked it. That thought is almost exciting enough to distract you from your hangover! Almost. 

You get to your room, shut (and lock!) the door, and shirk off your dress before climbing into your soft bed. You snuggle up under the covers, close your eyes, and that’s when the gravity of the situation really hits you. 

Karkat likes you! Karkat wants to touch you and kiss you too and he did that to you! He did that to you last night, and oh god, you wish you would have been sober, you wish he would have been sober, but it was enough. It’s probably a good thing you got interrupted this morning, because you two definitely need to clarify your relationship before jumping into a cold pool of sex. You are both at the edge of a cliff and there’s absolutely no way you’re not pushing yourselves off of it. Something’s going to happen, something a long time coming.

You slip your hand between your legs and think of his hands running across your breasts, his face against yours, his lips against your neck. 

Long time coming, indeed.


	32. Well, I'm Down if You Are (Reduit)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This chapter is semi-nsfw**

You’re woken up by a loud knock on your door. You semi-automatically say, “Hold on a sec,” as you’re tugged out of sleep, and are halfway to your dresser before you’re even fully conscious. Wow, you sure are an excellent sleepwalker? You pull on a random undershirt and one of your (high collared) black dresses. You feel a whole lot better after your nap, you must not have slept for too long because you got all of the benefits and none of the grogginess. Sweet deal!

You open the door expecting a maid or somebody like that but find Karkat Vantas waiting for you, a covered bowl and a grubloaf balanced under his free arm. You can’t help but break into a smile at the sight of him. He’s changed back into his red qipao, sans armor and weapons, and looks so friggin’ adorable standing at your door and blushing up a storm.

He looks like he tried to steel his nerves against you and totally failed and hates himself for it. He’s looking somewhere over your left shoulder and stammering. “I, er, oh, hi, Jade, fancy seeing you- No, fuck me, not ‘fancy seeing you here,’ of course you’re here you’re in your own fucking room, I’m a total-”

“There’s no need to be nervous, Karkat.” You hold out your arms like you’re presenting yourself, then tease, “It’s just me, Jade! Same as always, your moon and stars.”

That gets him to smile. A sort of genuineness he doesn’t even try to hide, making him shake his head like he can’t believe your silliness. “You’re awful,” he says, tenderly. “I mean it.”

“Not as awful as that nickname.” You step aside, opening the door further and letting him in. “What’d you bring me?”

“Breakfast is served, princess.” he says, looking around your room. “I thought we could eat together, that is, if you’ve got a clear ring of space in this fucking dump. Is literally every micrometer of the floor covered in your miniature cushion-y tentacle beasts?”

You direct him towards one of the corners of your room, where you have a permanent pillow fort set up for guests. Large, plain tapestries in bright colors drape themselves down the wall, and matching cushions are placed on top of a patterned rug. Karkat and you sit down next to each other, at a comfortable distance for a nice talk, and he opens the lid of the bowl and places the grubloaf on it like a plate.

He brought a heavy sort of seafood stew, with chunky tomatoes, peppers, clams, squid rings from the Blade Coast, and a good dose of pickled cabbage. Yum! A great thing to have for a hangover. He probably requested it from the kitchen.

Karkat rips off a chunk of the grubloaf and dips it in first. “Hey, before we get to The Talk, or what the fuck ever, can I just ask if… if you’re doing alright? I absolutely did not want to hurt you, and watching you leave the room earlier it hit me how fucking bad I scratched you up. I know you’re comparable to a bizarre evolution of a hardcore rock golem, but human skin is a dank, hidden conundrum to me, and I honestly wouldn’t mind if you didn’t want anything to happen between us because of these:”

He bites into the grubloaf covered in stew, teeth tearing into the shell of a clam like it was paper. Wow, he eats the shells?

You giggle. “Karkat, that would be silly if I stopped liking you because of your teeth. I know you’d be gentle with me unless I asked.”

“Me? Gentle? Jade, I am a raging cholarbear at all times.”

“Of course, how could I forget!” You dip your own piece of grubloaf into the stew. “And I’m fine, Karkat. Really. If I were some kind of delicate flower I might be a little mad, but you know how buff and hardy I am!”

“So buff.”

“The buffest!” You pop your first bite of breakfast into your mouth, delicious, savory acidity filling up your tastebuds. You chew it down before continuing. “Anyway, is that all? Is it time for…” You waggle your hands on your way to get another piece of grubloaf. “… The Talk?”

Karkat doesn’t play along with your small bit of humor, choosing instead to thoughtfully munch on a squid ring. “Yeah, I guess. I’ll start with my proposition, and we can talk about it. I mean, Talk about it.”

He swallows, then begins. “I spent time talking to your insufferable brother, who provided me with some much needed definitions to what I think you want to be with me and what I want to be with you. So let me describe what I feel when I think about you, and then my suggestion based on that.”

Karkat flicks his eyes up towards the ceiling, his blush tapering off into something faint. His voice comes out serious, like he’s rolling off a list of facts. “I care about you, deeply. You’re dear to me. I would do anything, fucking anything, for you. I also want to throw you down and do unspeakable things to you that would make harlequin novel authors clutch their handkerchiefs in a sexually repressed tizzy.”

You stop mid-bite. Those familiar crush fuzzies well up in your chest. Yes!

“So, I have finally come to the conclusion, that I would like to be your…” he pauses, gathering up his strength. His voice gets earnest, more genuine, and he looks straight at you. “Clusterfucked pseudo-pale good forever friend who mutually won’t take shit but will always listen to the other, with a side of frequent coital relations for expression of feelings and feel-goods, assuming minor restrictions do not factor into your eventual acceptance.”

“Uh,” you say.

You inwardly debate between asking about the ‘minor restrictions’ and why he didn’t just say ‘boyfriend.’ You decide the latter is more important. “Karkat, you could just say ‘boyfriend,’ you know.”

Karkat draws air through his teeth. “I don’t like that word, that human word.”

You’re honestly shocked. “What? Karkat ‘rule-crazy’ Vantas, shirking away from a label?”

He makes a gesture like he’s holding a bunch of imaginary oranges angrily. “It’s too, I don’t know, delicate? It’s not _right_ , Jade, it’s not the correct definition. I’m not boyfriend material, not even a little.”

You raise an eyebrow. “Uh, excuse me, Mr. ‘I would drown in you, Jade, bluh bluh huge romance.’”

“That was sexy Karkat. Sexy Karkat is a whole ‘nother beast. Do not listen to sexy Karkat.” He bites his lip, looks up at the ceiling again. “No, just kidding, that’s not true either. I mean those things when I say them, and blaming it on an iteration of past-me is just dodging the fucking bullet of truth. I mean them. I’d drown in you without a second thought. There, that’s present me, meaning that.”

“That’s cute and all, but I don’t understand what you’re trying to say. I think you’re totally boyfriend material. We work well together.”

“Here, let me use an example, you love examples.” He makes a motion to grab your hand and hold it, but is blocked by you holding a clam in it. Oops. He settles on meaningful eye contact instead.

“You know who is boyfriend material? Dave Strider. That kid fucking worshiped the ground you walked on, worshiped you in a different way than my pity-harboring past self did two sweeps ago, worshiped you in a way you understood and needed at the time, and eventually worshiped you so hard he turned into a bird. That was such a dumb fucking move I’m surprised the universe didn’t collapse around him from the sheer idiocy pulled by his complete misunderstanding of who you are. Your ex was more blind than my ex. That was a ‘good boyfriend’ sort of move to pull, and he pulled it.”

Your ears fold down against your head. Gosh, what is he on about? “You would do the same. You just said you’d do anything for me! You can’t say that and make fun of Dave for doing what you would have done. If right now, we were put into that same situation, what if I would have told you to put on that cuirass?”

“I would have done it. If you had told me to. If that was how I would get you out of there and that’s what you decided.” says Karkat. He leans forward, his face a terrifying sort of grumpy. “But I would have fucking fought you for every second I had to spare. I would have debated you, dropped legendary f bombs on you, thrown insults at you until you were tired of me. But at the very end, if you had said jump, I would have asked how high. If you had told me, up and told me, to put on that cuirass, I would have. Because I trust you, Jade. I trust you when you’re certain, when you’ve made your plans and schemes, when you know yourself. And even more than that, I trust you when *I* know what you’re capable of.

“I won’t speculate, I won’t fucking idolize or dream about what you can do like Dave. I’m not going to consistently support this weird image you sometimes build around yourself, this image of how you’re always going to reach out to everyone and solve all their problems. I’m going to drag you down kicking to my level whenever I can, because that’s how I fucking operate, and it’s not going to feel good. I’m not a good person for your unintelligible human romance, I’m too, I don’t know. I’m like my teeth. Sharp. Angry. Scratching you.”

You quirk an eyebrow. “But you can say all those things about me with you too. Get rid of Dave and put in, I don’t know, Terezi maybe. Terezi trying to fix you and pity you and stuff after you hurt your leg. Unlike her, I can scratch you right back, Karkat. Like, we’ve got equally sized claws in this metaphor. We work well together because we’re evenly matched!”

“I’m not saying we’re not on equal footing here, I’m saying…” He pauses, looks away. “I don’t feel like your human label really encompasses what we are, you know?”

You set your clam on the lid of the bowl so you can fold your arms at Karkat. You’re not opposed to _not_ calling yourselves girlfriend/boyfriend as long as you both agree on how you feel about each other? It’s just kind of… odd. Karkat has a lot of weird hangups about romance, you guess, but you’re willing to compromise.

“Ooo… Kay? So, what do you want us to be called, then? How am I supposed to introduce you at parties?”

“I told you, clusterfucked pseudo-pale forever friend with a side of frequent coital relations.”

“I can’t say that at parties!”

“You don’t go to parties!”

“We just went to one!”

He thinks about this. “Okay, fine. We go labeless. We just be us, and all that ‘us’ comes with. Introduce me just as ‘Karkat,’ then fend off any bitches that immediately try to swarm me.”

“Does that mean ‘us’ is monogamous? Am I going to have to be worried about random threesome possibilities popping up with your quadrants? Er, ‘worried’ in quotations, there, ha ha.”

“Well, there’s only one of me and one of you. That sounds pretty fucking monogamous.” He pauses to take a bite of his neglected grubloaf. “As for quadrants? I won’t allow anyone to pity me. I’m pretty sure I’m viscerally incapable of holding down a hatemance. And I’m still not over my last moirail. You were the shittiest rebound ever.”

You stick your tongue out at him. “Well maybe if someone didn’t want to sex me up so bad it would have worked out!”

Karkat takes a snide side-bite of his grubloaf. “Maybe if someone didn’t develop *feelings.*”

“Pssh, don’t blame me for that, you also did.”

“And you also wanted to pail me, so it’s really a whole cycle of sheer fuckery going down between us.”

You de-shell your almost-forgotten clam and pop it in your mouth. It’s kind of cold. “Hmm, okay, one more question… Is the lack of solid identity for our relationship going to… fuck us over at some point?”

He rolls something around in his mouth, actually thinking about your question. “You know, in another situation, I’d say ‘yeah, definitely, let’s conform to a certain standard.’ But it’s us. We’re putting out our own fucking beat and marching to it. We’ll support each other and violently argue and violently laugh and be best fucking friends who care so deeply we’ll carve permanent wounds in the other’s bloodpusher with our bare hands.”

“You’re so committed! We’re not going to like, rip out each other’s hearts or anything. It’s just… a relationship.”

You feel kind of squicky after that leaves your mouth. Just a relationship? No, Karkat… Karkat is special. Karkat, no matter how long or how little you know him, he’s going to leave an impact. A big one. You’re not sure what kind yet.

A very different set of butterflies fill you, like lightning far off in the cloudy distance, green against the setting sun. These butterflies matured, are brown and patched, beautiful contrast against dark blue sky. You imagine Karkat with that color, the color of a storm brewing on the horizon.

You take a deep breath. “Okay, I’ll agree to your silly plan for now. Let’s just be us. A cute human and an even cuter troll constantly hanging out and having a fun time with each other!”

Karkat grins in reply, not a single ounce of nervousness crossing his face.

You smile at him, and he smiles back, and that one really is earnest. Karkat’s smile, unused and worn, pulled out just for you. Your mature butterflies flicker in the warm wind. You look at each other, laughter catching in your throats, a kind of mutual ‘you should probably kiss now’ vibe floating between you. But it doesn’t feel right, it’s not the time. You’ve got breakfast to eat and other things to talk about.

You break eye contact to grab another chunk of grubloaf. What next on the agenda? Oh, you know.

You dip your piece into the stew, super nonchalantly. “Let’s talk about sex! You wanted to say something to me, right? And we should probably discuss all the boring stuff that comes with cross-species genitalia roulette.”

“Oh, er, yeah, that.” Karkat gets that blush back, and your butterflies return to their silly, lighthearted fluttering in your chest. He glares violently at the bowl between you. “I don’t want you… uh, getting, you know. Jumping me. Did you take care of your human blue bulge equival-”

“I orgasmed three times and thought about you to reach all of them.”

Karkat immediately launches into the straight up best reaction you’ve ever seen. He inhales too fast, then clutches at his throat, choking on his own spit. Blood rushes to his face in a fury, and he makes some really good noises trying to gasp for all the air that apparently got sucked out of him due to explicit content.

“You can’t just say that,” he hisses. “That is not a thing you say.”

“Too bad, I just did!” you giggle. “You’ll have to get used to it.”

He’s silent for a bit, crossing his legs and leaning forward to hide his head in his hands. He gives you a very quiet, “Three?”

You wink at him, even though he isn’t looking. It’s the thought that counts! “Three! Really. You do that to me, hot stuff. Also, like, one for each month I skipped out on, I guess.”

You reach out to pap him on the back. Aw, he’s all warm and shaky!

“Karkat, there’s no need to be embarrassed! I don’t bite.”

“Yeah, but I might.”

You sit in shocked silence for a few seconds before Karkat shoots his head up to grin at you. “That was a joke.”

“Oh, ha ha. Yeah.” You take your hand off him to dip another chunk of bread in the soup. Don’t get flustered! You’re supposed to be the brave, unabashed one. “Um, so, okay… What were you going to say to me before we got interrupted this morning? Something about ‘minor restrictions?’”

He sighs, diverts his gaze to the floor, returning to a straighter posture. He looks, kind of odd. Statuesque, almost. “Yeah. Minor. Fairly minor. Maybe not to you, maybe it’ll make you want to pull the breaks on whatever we’re going to do, but… well, fuck, here it is..." He's silent for a bit, before saying, in a a tone so flat it would make Dave proud:

“Do you remember when I told you I couldn’t feel much below the waist?”

You chew thoughtfully on a squid ring.

“Oh.” you say, getting it.

You always kind of suspected Karkat’s injury had some lasting effects besides his leg, but you were hoping that ‘can’t feel things under my waist on my left side’ managed to conveniently avoid his dick. You guess not.

You were kind of surprised with the way he said his question. He said it like it was just… a normal thing. A fact. He didn’t sound upset. Well, if it’s a normal thing to Karkat, it’s a normal thing to you! And you’ve got lots of science-y questions to ask about it.

“So… can you not feel _anything_ anything? Or just some things?”

Karkat bites his lip, unsure of your opinion on it. “Er, I can feel some things. Barely. It’s… different. Different than how it was before.”

You smile at him, and Karkat gets just a little more flustered. Aww! For all his rude language, Karkat’s so cute and innocent. You’re _so_ going to push his buttons. “I bet you like a lot of foreplay then, I bet I gotta get you _really_ turned on for you to come for me. Assuming you can orgasm?”

And that sends Karkat blossoming into about fifty different shades of red. Score. “I. Ha. Ha. Yup. I, fuck, that means you’re… okay with this? Just checking since it’ll be hard as hell to pull out halfway through the sinful act…”

“I am more than okay with your bulge! I want you to tell me all about it and what you like and what I can do for you. In great detail!”

Karkat’s face breaks into this silly grin, and he facepalms in shame. “Oh, fuck, yes. Okay. I can do that.”

He begins to stammer the first few sounds of whatever his next sentence is going to be, but he can’t make it through even one word. You start giggling. “Oh noooo Karkat, there’s no need to be embarrassed. It’s just sex stuff! It’s fun!”

“Not all of us can be as loose with our morals as you, Jade.” He says into the palms of his hands.

You have got to get Karkat feeling more comfortable! You want to know all of this stuff. Hmm, you think you know how to make the environment a bit friendlier to him… “Hey, Karkat, why don’t we do this in Alternian? Would that help?”

“I… ha. _< Yeah._ >” he says. He lifts his head up, but still doesn’t look at you. Well, can’t win ‘em all. “ _< Thanks. Uh, what do you want to know?_ >”

You lean forward, really interested. “ _< First off, how are things different than before?_ >”

“ _< How are things not different? If I had a boondollar for every difference… I’d be a rich troll, jumping into a pile of my deadened bulge money and it would be amazing. I guess it’s… I don’t fucking know, numb-er? Like I got iced for an obscene amount of time after a terrible fetish play gone wrong. Arousal comes more from my head than my dick, like, hmm-_ >”

He switches to Common, apparently deciding the story is better told in your language. “Like, I thought it was the end of the world after I got it together enough to try, uh, < _spilling my own slurry >_ for the first time with this newfound numbness superpower. I literally could not figure the shit out. Yeah, it was clear I *wanted* it, but I didn’t know how to achieve the ultimate goal. _< Just touching myself wasn’t fucking doing it for me. It was making me more frustrated than anything, because I felt *just* enough to turn myself on but not push it further.  >_”

You bite your lip. Thinking of Karkat trying _desperately_ to get himself off is doing things to your lady bits. Haha, damn, you’re totally ready to go despite literally having three orgasms like an hour ago. “ < _Did you figure it out?_ >”

He’s silent, working up the courage to answer you, gripping the pillow under him like he’ll slip off of it at any moment. “ _< Yeah. And I realized I had been doing it completely wrong for the entirety of my life. I never got… creative… before. Never had to focus myself down to a pinpoint of orgasmic machinery._ >”

Hoo boy, you might decide to consummate your relationship as soon as this conversation ends. Karkat sounds _interesting_. Karkat makes you want to explore him even more than you did before. “ < _Creative? How so? >_”

He does the ‘cover face in hands’ thing again. “ _< You probably know this since you’re this humongous brainiac, but other… parts… tend to get more sensitive when you lose feeling in certain areas._ >” He gets very, very quiet then, hunching in so you can barely hear him. “ _< My, ah, upper body, got a lot more… sensitive. Everything on my torso. Neck. Arms too. Wrists. Fingers. Touch me, touch me *gently,* so gently you barely graze me, or fucking tear into me, destroy me, nothing in-between._ >”

You cross your legs, tightly. “ _< Do you… when you’re by yourself, do you… play into that?_ >”

He hunkers in more, basically collapsing in on himself with embarrassment. “ _< Yeah. Yes. It takes me… a hell of a long time, even with that. I have to work myself up to it. With others, or with the one absolutely bonkers troll I’d been with after the incident who I assume applies for the rest of everyone, it takes me much less time.  >_”

You wonder how Terezi dealt with this. You bet she did weird shit with his bulge if he can’t feel much. Like had him lift tiny weights or something. You’ll have to write her a letter about it. “How long would it take with me, on average?”

“An hour, probably. Depends.”

Oh, _yes_. You are so done with terrible lays who come after ten minutes. This could not get any better. “ _< Karkat, that is so exciting, I will indulge you for however long you want. Oh, are orgasms different? Does slurry actually come out or are they just like, muscle contractions?_ >”

Karkat peeps, which is the cutest thing ever, and stutters out, “ _< Yes, fuck, of course slurry comes out you asscake, it’s called  > _ comeing _ < for a fucking reason. And… Yeah, they’re longer. Calmer. I like them… a hell of a lot better, actually. It really helps me relax. >_”

Longer? Troll orgasms are already pretty long. That’s super cool! You’re so ready to fuck Karkat. Dang. “Karkat, your dick sounds awesome.”

“I- what. Really? Fuck. Okay, that’s a good thing. That’s a good thing.” He sits up again, his eyes squeezed shut so he doesn’t look at you. “I want you to know I haven’t been with a human before. Hell, I haven’t even read xeno about your specific set. Or, well, what I’m assuming is your set, I shouldn’t jump to-”

You giggle. “I’ve got an innie! Have you read stories about a bulge whipping a rock hard cock into submission?”

“*Oh my gods,* I am never going to tell you that. Let’s just say I’ve never read about… er… pus-sy.”

You groan in terrible secondhand embarrassment. “Just call it a nook or something. Or just say it. Pussy. See, not that hard.”

“That is the worst word I’ve ever heard, and, uh, < _it is nothing like a nook, nooks hide bulges in them, yours hides potential human babies. >_”

You stick your tongue out at him, and he blinks open his eyes in time to catch your comeback. “Don’t worry about it, Karkat. We’ll take our time and explore each other and make sure we know what we’re doing. Oh, and I should warn you that most trolls don’t like the feeling of going inside someone. I mean, the huge majority of the trolls I’ve been with couldn’t even get it in, and the ones with muscles strong enough to do it complained about how tight it was. Apparently it hurts pretty bad.”

Karkat narrows his eyes at you. “Did you not hear anything I said? Hurt means fucking nothing.”

You wince. “Well, I don’t know, I don’t want you uncomfortable! And you might not be able to get in, anyway, since it really takes a lot of motor control and force to get troll dicks to straighten out enough and-”

“Jade. Listen. It won’t be a problem.”

“Uh.”

He leans towards you, placing an arm on your shoulder like he’s going to say something like ‘I’m proud of you, son.’ The words that come out of his mouth are the exact opposite of that phrase.

“My dick can pick a lock.”

“… What?”

“My dick can pick a lock.” He repeats, dead serious, like you didn’t hear him.

“... How do you know that?”

He’s deadpan. “Terezi.”

“Can it… lockpick my… vagin-”

“Yes.”

Your face scrunches up in the way it does when your brother pulls a terrible prank on you. Okay, you have _got_ to write Terezi a letter.

You hear a quiet knock on your door, followed by a very ladylike, “Miss Jade? May I enter to perform my cleaning duties?”

At least somebody knocks. You look at Karkat to see if he wants you to let her in, and he just shrugs. Yeah, you guess you talked about everything you needed to that should be private. Karkat drops his arm from your shoulder as you say, “Yeah, come in!”

The maid comes in with a curtsy and a pile of sheets, sets them down on a clean patch of ground, and starts tidying up your squiddles. Oh, you should probably help her with that! You stand up to go to her, but Karkat grabs your arm.

“Hey, one more thing: I say we go cure your curse today. We can make it to Hgothrar easy, arrive with just a sliver of time to spare before the sun fucks off under the horizon, force Kankri to give you the book with a reasonable amount of sociological debate, then watch as our plans come to glorious fruition and that gray shit gets sucked out of you face-first.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to rest up?” you say. “I mean, it’s a good idea, but we’re kind of hungover.”

“I always feel like this, shitty and on the edge of vomiting.” Karkat doesn’t drop your arm, sliding his hand gently down around your wrist. “I don’t know, Jade, I feel like your curse is this weight that’s constantly hanging over us, and I think you share my enthusiasm for getting rid of it. We're so fucking close. It’ll be easy, anyway. Even if the place is closed or some other catastrophic event occurs it’s not like we can’t break through the wall and steal the cure.”

“I do want to get rid of it ASAP, you’re right. Let’s meet near the stables in an hour.”

He nods, keeping his eye contact with you. “And afterwards, after we get that book,” he nervously glances at the maid behind you, then tugs you down to his level. His lips press against your ear, soft and sensitive, and he whispers, “Afterwards, we get a room at that shitty inn meant for pilgrims, and we _consummate this damn thing we’ve got going._ ”

“That sounds lovely.” you whisper right back. You linger a bit, reach your hand up to the small section of his neck that peeks out over the collar of his qipao, and very very gently drag your fingers across his skin. So gently they barely touch. Karkat shivers with an almost inaudible 'mmph' in your ear, and he grabs your wrist tight in reaction before letting you go.

You help him stand up, tugging him by the arm, and he flashes you a hidden smile as he readies his cane. You say your quiet goodbyes as he leaves, then turn your attention to the maid. Oh no, Mr. Squigglebottom is _not_ supposed to sit next to Cherrywall Applesnort, you’re going to have to help rearrange…


	33. Uncomfortably Meta

You leave the city on Halley, heading due south towards the craggy, ancient pilgrims path through the mountains. The road was an old seadweller creation, carved claw-by-claw as they migrated from the southern salt lakes towards the shore near Porkmor-Kahn and founded the latter half of the city. Their haste in the creation of the path shows: it’s narrow enough for only one traveler at a time, is prone to frequent rock slides, and is consistently on the edge of a huge drop-off into the sharp cliffs at basically every point of the route.

But the air is fresh from the nearby coast, the path is clear and dry, and it leads straight to Hgothrar and the little village that’s settled at the foot of it. It’s a good route to get there quickly. It’ll still take a long time, but like Karkat said, you’ll make it there by sunset!

You can’t talk to each other very loudly, due to the dangerous rock slide thing, but Karkat manages to get around that little detail through some creative positioning. He wraps his arms around your waist, nestles his head against your shoulder, and you whisper to each other just like that. Close and cozy.

It’s not anything important, just silly stuff like, ‘this is the most boring scenery ever, and yes, I remember the plains’ and ‘oh my gosh Karkat, if you liked those tiny sandwiches, you should have tried Jane's lemon bars’ and ‘hey, Jade, remember the pair after us when we got temporary knight-witched way back in the day? Yeah, them, heard they slayed some dragon or another… What the fuck have we done in comparison?’ What makes it so _nice_ though is that neither of you have to worry about getting too intimate or close because you both know where you stand. Being in a relationship with Karkat is going to be the best thing ever!

He also falls asleep against you at some point, and you let him rest. You entertain yourself thinking about all the fun stuff you’re going to do to him tonight. Karkat is going to be a nervous, shivering wreck and you’re going to love working with that. _Hell yes._

You take a few breaks to eat cold cuts you brought along and stretch a bit, but manage to make it into the little town below Hgothrar in due time. You ride straight through the cute little cottages built on the flat, rocky plane, not pausing to take a peek at any of them. They’re all stuff meant for pilgrims anyway, as well as a specialty building meant for someone skilled in medical aid without the use of magic.

You have to dismount Halley when you get to the 748 steps up to the monastery. It’s carved into the side of the mountain, deathly steep, and also incredibly old. A little plaque at the bottom says it’s normally a 20 minute walk, but it takes the two of you 40 minutes due to Karkat having to use an extra bit of caution.

When you get up to the top --the monastery and its billowing, blood red tapestries looming over you-- the sun is almost below the horizon. Tall, ruined towers ripped from the snowy cliffs cast long shadows over the both of you as you walk arm in arm down the narrow, inclined corridor. The monastery itself is a stony, blocky, gray thing with absolutely no fun colors, built in the square-ish style of your grandpa’s era as a temple to the troll god of suffering and pain. Because, like, of course they would have a god of suffering, and of course Kankri would be some kind of herald of the guy.

A few monks clad in brown and red are out and about in the small, snowy courtyard, but you ignore them as the both of you march up the steps and straight into the monastery. The inside is as boring and blocky as the outside, stone carved from the side of the mountain into the least friendly shapes you could ever think of. Some monks are sitting on the uncomfortable looking slab of bench on the side, and you’re about to go ask them where Kankri is when you hear a familiar voice call out to you.

“Jade, Karkat, I’m so glad you could make it!”

You turn, coming face to face with Aranea Serket, of all people.

Well, that's incredibly random. She's waving hello to you, clad in a yellow and orange sleeveless robe with the Vantas' symbol draped around her neck. She looks genuinely happy to see you too.

A little, tiny hint of suspicion pops up in your mind. You glance at Karkat to see if he’s picked up on it too, but he just looks annoyed at her appearance. She keeps talking. She sounds... incredibly excited. Too excited.

“I heard all about why you’re visiting today, and might I say, I am very, very glad you decided to make the trip here! Very glad! I haven’t seen the both of you together since… When was it, Mituna and Latula’s bonding ceremony? You remember that event, right?”

You do, you were sixteen and bored out of your mind. You didn’t know Karkat was also there, but you guess it made sense since the whole ceremony was kind of a Big Deal. Not a lot of people take the traditional knight-mage long-term protection vows anymore, due to how weird and permanent they are. You had to memorize them as part of your necromancy training. There’s like, bloodletting and everything! All you remember is that Mituna bawled throughout the whole event.

“Er, yeah.” you say.

“Hell no, I’d blocked that fuckfest out with a mistaken overdose of the spiked punch at the after-party.” says Karkat. “Who the fuck are you?”

Aranea smiles, in the way your mom smiles at dignitaries she’s going to assassinate later. “Aranea Serket, at your service. I’m working for your _dear_ broodmate now, Karkat, as somewhat of a receptionist. I feel like I’m meant for the job, honest-”

“Look,” says Karkat, clearly losing patience. “Just let us go to the library or summon Kankri with your secretary powers or something, because we’ve spent a perigree in a half getting here and want to get this over with so we can fuck out of here ten times faster than you can finish one of your two hundred syllable sentences.”

Aranea frowns at him for a visible amount of time, before her fake smile returns. “Of course. Might I guide the knight and his lovely witch to Mr. Vantas?”

You have to say something at that comment. “Um, we’re not a witch-slash-knight pair anymore. We just did that for training a few years ago.”

“Also, I got kicked out of the knighthood deal. We’re just… uh…” Karkat stammers, fumbling for a word. Gosh, this is why you asked the question ‘how do we introduce each other at parties.’

“Com… panions?” you say, trying to help him out.

“Yeah, that.”

“Oh.” She looks disappointed for some reason. Did she... ship you? “Well, that’s too bad. Let’s go get Kankri!”

She walks towards the large double doors at the back of the entryway with a swoosh of her robes. You follow her down narrow, gray hallways and old wooden staircases to the innermost sanctums of the monastery.

The center room is fairly large, clearly built into an existing cave in the mountain. It’s huge and empty and echoing, the ceiling vast and sprawling far above you, the only distinctive feature being a small red shrine in the back. It’s somewhat dark, lit only by small orbs generated at the top of the cave, probably put up that high so Kankri won’t be able to touch them and cancel them out.

He’s sitting at the shrine, his back to the three of you, his arms opened in a meditation pose. As soon as the three of you enter, he jerks very suddenly and sharply, like he got electrocuted. Your suspicion grows a little bit bigger.

He stands up, and it surprises you how much like Karkat his motions are. Like he’s continually trying to keep back this weird, unfathomable anger through these controlled, jarring actions. He makes this flowing, holy motion with his hands, and waits for you to approach him.

“ _< Oh._ >” says Kankri, looking the both of you up and down. You think. “< _You came despite my objections. May I just say, and I mean this in the most inoffensive way I can muster and apologies in advance if I trigger either of you, ‘dang.’ >_”

Karkat isn't phased by that odd comment, and launches straight into an argument. “ _< Look, stop spewing your bullshit and let us have the book already, I don’t care what-_ >”

Kankri looks… weird. Feels weird. Emaciated, vapid, something… You think you know what. You close your eyes, and it only takes a second to confirm your suspicion. A subtle sort of horror fills you up as you open them.

“Karkat,” you say, interrupting whatever he’s saying. “Kankri’s dead.”

Karkat turns to you, silent and gaping, before replying with a very determined, “What?”

He doesn't wait for you to reply. He grabs Kankri by the shoulder, pulls him in, and flips his hood back. You weren't wrong since your necromancy senses are always one hundred percent right, but it feels good to confirm your hypothesis as two very white eyes meet Karkat's gaze. Kankri scowls, then brushes Karkat’s hand off his shoulder.

“ _< What the hell?  >_” says Karkat, appalled. “ _< How’d you die?_ >”

“ _< I fell down the stairs._ >”

“< _I warned you about those._ >” says Karkat. “< _How long ago?_ >”

“ _< A sweep ago, the player of my necromancy game failed, although failure is such a strong word, I’d prefer to go with ‘momentarily had a natural lapse in cognitive thought during a chess game.’ Another won’t be able to try again for at least two more perigrees. Aranea was hired in the meantime to… hmm, keep me fresh. Whenever I’m needed for any meetings, presentations, or demonstrations of the empire’s power, I am forcefully recalled to my body by her. I did try to warn you, for many perigrees now, although I suppose it was too much to hope you’d actually read my letters._ >”

That doesn’t sound right. Why did Kankri say ‘warn Karkat’ instead of ‘tell Karkat?’ You give Kankri a good side-eye. “ _< Warn him? What do you mean?_ >”

Kankri’s face changes from his default ‘feeling objectified’ expression to something frightening. It’s fiery and angry, too similar to Karkat’s passionate expressions to be comfortable. You didn’t think he was capable of that kind of face.

“ _< That Aranea will kill you, too._ >”

You’re slinging your blunderbuss out before you even have time to digest the comment.

Karkat’s already got her in the crook of his sickle, sharp blade pressed up firmly against her throat, and she looks _absolutely terrified_. Good. You’ve got her under your crosshairs, and there’s no way you’re going to miss at this range.

“Explain.” says Karkat. “And you’d better make it good because we don’t have a single ounce of patience for this shit when we’re so fucking close to the end of our journey.”

Aranea nervously gulps against the blade. “Oh, um, well, Kankri wasn’t supposed to reveal that _quite_ yet, but it’s not like this narrative isn’t flexible!”

“Aranea, what are you talking about?” you say.

“The narrative! The dramatic conclusion! As Karkat put it so appropriately: the end of your journey! Not yours, Karkat, but Jade’s. It’s Karkat’s monomyth, after all! We can’t draw this to a close for him, but Jade has a different plotline.”

You can only listen in confusion as she keeps ranting. “I can’t just hand over something that just _magically cures some spooky mysterious curse_ so easy like that, if such a thing even exists. You need conflict for a good story! You need drama, romance, tension, all building up to a well-planned climax! You need a battle! You need a threat! You need hard-hitting callbacks to past events! And most importantly, you need character development to further the main character’s quest.”

You’re not sure what to say, so you blurt out the first thing that pops into your head. “Who’s the main character?”

“Easy! The focus of this legend in the making would be Karkat. Apologies, Jade, but you’re going to be metaphorically stuffed in the icebox.”

“Wha-”

You can't finish that thought because you're immediately yanked backwards by something beyond your control.


	34. Sadistic DMing 101 (Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies)

You have absolutely no idea what does it either, it’s like your body decided to chuck itself violently backwards without any input from your head. It’s only when you finish your arc, suspended in place and standing very far away from the rest of the group, you can see those red sparks dance themselves along your body. You’re frozen, unable to move, your panicked motions eliciting no response from your arms or legs.

Shit. You’ve been biomanced.

Not only is Aranea actively trapping Kankri’s soul in his body, she’s also _controlling_ him. Thankfully, it doesn’t look like she’s doing it well, due to the very upset face Kankri is making. That’s a relief, it would be impressive if Aranea managed to imitate him that perfectly for so long. It looks like Kankri is still in full possession of his body whenever she decides to drop control. Er, well, as much control as you can have when you're a living soul trapped in a corpse.

Karkat’s also got red sparks all over him, standing stock still a few yards away from Aranea. He’s grimacing, looking like he’s choking on something but its probably just his own rage.

You find you can move your mouth again, although your arms and legs are still very, very stuck. “Aranea, what the hell are you doing?”

“Making a legend, Jade. I’ve been trying to get Karkat here since Kankri took his unfortunate tumble down the steps, and you’ve finally, finally brought him to me! It’s too bad you’re not going to see the spoils of your success, but I am willing to make sacrifices.”

“Is this the part where you give your big evil speech?” you say. “Because, I’m like, actually going to listen this time. I’m really curious.”

“Yeah,” says Karkat. “I mean, as much as I want to verbally flip you off, I have no fucking clue what’s happening and could really use a schoolfeeding of knowledge.”

“Oh, you two flatter me! I will launch into said speech with pleasure. First off, sorry, I had Kankri lie. He tried to warn you in the very same letters, actually, but I managed to make the correct gamble that you wouldn't actually read them. There is no book we own that would possess the ability to cure Jade’s curse. I just used the fact she needed a cure as a very good tool to get Mr. Vantas here.”

“What!?” you yell, and you actually yell that for the sake of yelling it as opposed to trying to get people to hear you. “Karkat, what!? You said there was a book!?”

“Wait, what the fuck was I remembering then?” yells Karkat.

“I’m sure that book existed at some point in the past,” says Aranea. “But the monastery library is an active book lending facility. We’ve long ago lost that tome to some borrower or another who didn’t return it. Their overdue fees must be massive.”

“So, Karkat and I could have spent time going on a less worthless quest!?” you yell. “We trekked across that field and forest all for nothing!?”

“Not for nothing! I’m sure the two of you bonded quite well. Actually, I’m depending on that, it’ll make things way more meaningful.”

“Meaningful? What the fuck, you’re talking like Jade and I are some plot point inside an Alternian masterpiece.”

“Well, essentially, that’s what you are. That brings me to my second point: I brought you here to reunite < _The Scarlet Gems of the Empire >_, the left and right crown jewels that had been forcibly ripped from their gold sockets by an unfortunate accident. However, unlike the Condesce, I haven’t lost faith in the two of you! You will grace my new empire, set my tiara with your magical immunity as I rip my way across the continent.”

She grins then, big and sharp. “The three of us are going to take over the world.”

You try to squirm in your invisible grip but, dang, Kankri’s control hasn’t let up at all. You can’t even flex your leg muscles, it’s really odd. “Why? What could you possibly-”

“I won’t bore you with the political details, equality reforms, or sweeping movements I’ll initiate. What matters is there is a brighter future over the horizon for all of us! Anyway, I realize I sound very forceful and you probably won’t join willingly, but I really do need you, Karkat. Neither Kankri or I can do close range, and you’re the missing piece!”

“You do realize there’s a reason the Alternian empire dumped my ass faster than expired grubmeal, right? Hint: It starts with an l and ends with an eg.”

“Don’t worry, that won’t be a problem,” she grins. “Because you’ll be my pawn just like Kankri! My necromancy will very well provide for any missing muscles and chucklevoodoos you may pick up from your untimely death.”

You can just feel the eye-roll in Karkat’s next sentence. “Oh, wonderful, you’re going to kill me. Good to know my inevitable fate, I guess.”

“Not forever! You see, I can’t constantly be your puppet-master as we fight our enemies, you need your own piece of free will to keep to make close-range decisions that I’m just not equipped for. So I’m giving you an incentive: once we’re done with our task, I resurrect you for real. And, more importantly, I resurrect Jade as well. So you’re not fighting only for yourself, you’ll be fighting for your…” She hesitates, looking up like she’s thinking very hard. “… companion. I have to say that’s not a romantic turn of phrase but it’s what we have to work with.”

You wish her speech-ing would distract her from controlling Kankri, because you’re positive he wouldn’t keep biomancing you without her command, but she isn’t letting up at all. Guh, you have to think of a plan! You can’t just let her slaughter you like sheep! Might as well try to draw it out…

“Your plan sucks. How do you know Karkat’s going to fight for me?” you lie. “I don’t really like him, after all. I think he feels the same about me.”

You whisper a silent prayer that Karkat picks up on your ruse. You can’t see his face from here, but you sigh with relief as he begins his next sentence.

“Yeah, I was just with her because she needed me, I’m not going to fight tooth-and-nub for some dumbass biddy. And my life? Fucking worthless. Your strategy is terrible.”

He stuttered a bit, but it should have been good enough. Aranea doesn’t give you the expected reaction, her face splitting into an even bigger grin. “Oh please, I have allies stationed all over the capitals, and not a single one of them missed out on that huge scene you caused at Heir Egbert’s birthday party. Nice try, though!”

“Well, fuck.” says Karkat. You would facepalm if you had the ability.

“You two clearly care a lot for each other, unrequited or not, which is going to make my takeover much more sympathetic to the general public. Think of the _story_ they’ll tell. A troll fighting for his human lover, unable to tell her how he feels, refusing to return to life without her… Her corpse was lost in a tragic rock slide at Hgothrar, and both broodmates would have been gone as well if it wasn’t for the brave and benevolent necromancer queen Aranea Serket. Ah, but there will be a happy ending if all goes perfectly— the lover is rediscovered and the two are reunited and resurrected, confessing their attraction for one another, becoming witch and knight, and disappearing into the wilds. Kankri stays dead.” She turns to frown at Kanrki. “ < _Sorry, darling, but I need your biomancy forever. Karkat's skills can be replaced with sheer manpower and quite a few armies, but yours are very unique. >_”

Kankri scoffs. “< _I find it offensive that you’re implying the worth of one life is inherently worth more than-_ >”

“Anyway, isn’t that story good?” she eyes the both of you eagerly. “It’s going to make a takeover of the empires so much simpler if I spread a few sympathetic rumors here and there. It’s all about narratives! And we’ve got a good one.”

“I dunno, it sounds kind of cliche.” you say.

“No, keep it, that’s good.” says Karkat. “I’d read it.”

“Karkat, are you seriously arguing for our deaths, because that’s what it sounds like.”

“Well, Jade, not all of us can be born with the taste for the finer arts of plotting! I give appreciation where appreciation is due.”

Aranea giggles, interrupting the two of you. “I’m glad one of you likes it! The important one, anyway, it’s his story after all. And cheer up Jade,—” she wiggles her fingers, then Kankri wiggles his fingers, and you start walking.

It’s weird to be walking when you’re not in control of it. It’s like, you can feel everything moving, and you can almost trick yourself into thinking you’re in charge, but it doesn’t feel right. It feels like your whole body is asleep and possessed and wrong. You wonder if this is how the dead feel when you command them.

“—there’s some interesting callbacks I have planned for the both of you, and I want to see them played out. I’m sure you’ll appreciate them! They really tug at the heartstrings, and will add more depth to the overall dramatic narrative when told in villages across the land. The story of the both of you is quite epic, after all, and we have to give it a justified climax!”

Karkat also moved, further away from Aranea and Kanrki, and you’re now facing each other down in the long cavern. You have a bad feeling about this. A _really_ bad feeling.

“I’ve done a lot of research. A lot! Interviewed people, forced Kankri to tell me what he knew about you, and managed to glean everything needed about Karkat Vantas to make a good character study. Jade was a bit harder, but getting my ex-fiancee very, very drunk and having him ramble about the most _interesting_ things turned out to be the missing piece to her tragic past and personality.”

Oh _shit_. You think you know what’s going to happen, and there are no words to describe the horror that fills you. Judging by the look Karkat’s giving you, he’s realizing the same thing.

“Your backstories are so _similar_ ,” says Aranea, her voice absolutely giddy. “It’s a wonderful thing how we can hit two cluckbeasts with one stone with a dramatic battle! Told throughout the ages! Epic bookends for their lives! Jade, fighting her lover due to forces beyond her control… Her companion, unable to raise a hand against her and allowing himself to be slaughtered… Her last thoughts are those of absolute tragedy, wondering why she has to be a burden to everyone she loves! Karkat, reliving the past as his dearest friend bears down around him, sobbing with despair and relief as she tears into his leg… But he is reluctantly saved once again by Kankri, who brings the living earth down around all of them in a terrible rock slide! Everyone dies this time, of course, but are recovered by yours truly at an appropriate point in the story.

“Aaahh!” screams Aranea, in a manic release of joy. “This is _so fucking good_. I am the best conspirator ever.”

Your heart is pounding. You scan the room for some sort of out, some way to fight the biomancy. “Aranea. I’m not going to fight Karkat. I’m not. You can’t control the both of us like you’re playing with dolls, that would be really silly.”

“Oh, of course you aren’t.” she says. “That would just be crazy if I were playing with dolls. You’re forgetting something though, something you’ve had with you the whole entire time, the logical conclusion and purpose of this silly plot device. Surprise, it’s not a MacGuffin at all! What a twist.”

You can barely hear your words over your panicked heart hammering through your ears. “What are you talking about.”

You can tell Aranea takes great pleasure in her next line, her voice dripping with excitement and tension. “Your curse, of course! Have fun, now!”

Your arm raises and wipes Karkat’s dried blood off your cheek.


	35. Sadistic DMing 201 (Fudge Your Rolls!)

You start SHAKING, beginning to feel the long, dark fingers of something alien wind itself gently around your heart. It’s been too LONG, it’s been GROWING, your dad was right! Oh GOD, oh GOD.

“Karkat, please!” you scream, your voice coming out in two tones, one much much darker than what you should be able to produce. “Please do anything to get out of here, please fight me if you have to. Don’t do what she wants for us! Make this into a really shitty, elaborate fight just to make her mad!”

"I resent that." says Aranea.

Blood made rage starts to roar in your ears. POWER pumps through you in dark beats. When those evil, cold, WONDERFUL tendrils come winding through your soul, you have to accept them into you. Karkat’s face is A PERFECT EXPRESSION OF HORROR as YOU COIL around yourself.

You SCREAM as you DROP to all FOURS, CLOUDS of DARKNESS POOLING AROUND your GLORIOUS FORM, WRITHING AND BURNING AND HAILING YOU WITH WELCOME CEREMONY. YOU’RE RELEASED, YOU’RE FREE, AND YOU WILL TAKE YOUR GENEROUS HOST’S FORM AS YOU REAP THE VULGAR JOYS OF THE MORTAL COIL AFTER SO LONG.

YOUR NAILS MAY BE PITIFUL, YOUR NATURAL WEAPONS WEAK AND BLUNT, BUT THEY WILL DO. THEY WILL SUFFICE. THEY WILL SINK INTO THE ENEMY AS YOU CRAVE YOUR SACRIFICE. A CHILD STANDS BEFORE YOU, WEAK AND LAME, AND THE SCENT COIL OF THE HOST RECOGNIZES THE FEAR IN IT.

YOU SPRINT, YOUR HANDS BURSTING THE GROUND APART, THE EARTH TREMBLING BEFORE YOU AS YOU LASH OUT AT THE SPEED OF YOUR DARKNESS. YOUR MORTAL VESSEL TAKES THE BURDEN OF UNHOLY TRAVEL IN SWEET, SWEET PLEASURE, AS SHE ARRIVES IN FRONT OF THE BODY OF FLESH TO BE ENJOYED.

THE FOOL DOESN’T STRIKE YOU, TOSSES ITS WEAPON OVER YOU, AN ATTEMPT TO DRIVE ITS BLADE INTO THE FUTURE BOUNTIES BEHIND YOU. IT’S OPEN FOR YOUR COMING, AND THE VESSEL EASILY PUSHES IT TO THE EARTH, NO RESISTANCE HAMPERING YOUR TAKE DOWN. YOU ROAR IN A TAUNT THAT ECHOES THROUGHOUT THE CAVERN, YOUR VOICE A HERALD FOR YOUR ARRIVAL.

THE CHILD WRAPS ITS HAND FLESH AROUND THE VESSEL’S NECK, AND YOU REALIZE YOU FORGOT HOW WEAK THE MORTAL BODY WAS. BREATH ELUDES YOU, LIGHTNESS FILLS YOUR HOST, AND YOU GAPE IN PITIFUL REACTION TO THE ATTACK.

“ _< Karkat, stop that this instant!_ >” VOICES THE SHE-TROLL BEHIND YOU. “ _< You’re not supposed to choke her! That’s not what the narrative wants! That’s not how I pegged your character at all! Just sit back and die, please, and minimize any unwanted non-fatal wounds!  >_”

YOU DIG THE HOST’S NAILS INTO THE SOFT THROAT FLESH OF THE TROLL CHILD, AND HURT ECHOES FORTH FROM THE JUGULAR OF YOUR PREY. IT CRIES IN DELICIOUS PAIN, DROPS ITS HOLD FROM YOUR HOST, AND YOU SCREAM OUT IN YOUR TRIUMPH. YOU LINK YOUR HOST’S STRONG FINGERS AROUND ITS OWN THROAT, IN A HORRIBLE MOCKERY OF WHAT IT DID TO YOU.

BUT THE CHILD IS CLEVER, ITS PAIN A RUSE, AS IT RAISES ITS LOWER JOINTS TO STRIKE YOUR HOST WITH BRUISING PRESSURE. YOUR MORTAL VESSEL CRUMPLES INTO HER CENTER, AND THE CHILD SCRAMBLES FROM YOUR FATAL GRIP.

:((((((

please dont hurt him

YOUR POWER IS NOT DROPPED SO EASILY, AND YOU REACH OUT, YOUR ACIDIC DARK TENDRILS SURROUNDING AND EATING THE HAND FLESH OF THE HOST, AND GRAB THE LIMB OF THE CHILD. CLOTH ROTS UNDER YOUR TOUCH, MORTAL MATERIAL FAILING AGAINST YOUR MIGHT, AND THE ROPES OF ITS ARMOR- its a leg brace!!! -SNAPPING AND BREAKING AGAINST-

okay youve really got to quit this now :/

youre pretty sure you just melted the hosts hand off

THE CHILD WHIMPERS UNDER YOUR TOUCH AS-

stop!!!

YOU LET GO, YOUR MIND A JUMBLE OF-

you said stop and you meant it!!! gosh

THE CHILD JERKS AWAY FROM YOUR GRASP, A WHIMPER PICKED UP BY YOUR HOST’S EARS RINGING THROUGH YOUR MIND WITH THE CHILLING SOUND OF A SACRIFICE LOST.

you dont want to hurt karkat anymore please dont hurt karkat anymore please please please

you know you want more and all you need to do is just turn around

but please make it really quick please otherwise theyre going to force you back inside the host

and that wont be fun for you :(

YOU WILL TAKE YOUR GRACIOUS HOST’S INTENTIONS INTO ACCOUNT.

QUICKLY? YOU ARE AS FAST AS FIRE AND SHADOW, A RAGING WIND, ENEMY OF LIGHT. BUT THE HOST HAS SOMETHING FASTER, SOMETHING LOCKED AWAY TIGHT IN THE VESSEL, SOMETHING RIPPED FROM THE GENES OF AN OLD RIVAL. YOU WILL REVEL IN USING HIS ABILITIES, REVEL IN THE SPEED OF YOUR COMING.

YOU LOOK DEEP INSIDE HER, AND PHASE IN AND OUT OF REALITY, A JUMP FROM ONE PHYSICAL POINT TO ANOTHER IN YOUR RIVAL’S GREEN LIGHT.

YOU ARE IN FRONT OF THE OTHER CHILD, THE DEAD FLESH TO BE CONSUMED, ITS FORM SIMILAR TO THE LAST WHICH YOU WERE RIPPING INTO.

BUT WHAT SHALL YOU DO WITH THE CHILD? YOUR COMING DESERVES NAUGHT BUT A FEAST. THE CHILD STANDS THERE, UNAWARE AND TREMBLING IN THE FACE OF ITS FATE, UNKNOWING OF THE BEAUTIFUL VIOLENCE TO BE SUBJECTED UPON IT. YOU COMMAND THE VESSEL WITH HER POINTED FANGS TO B̀ͮ͡I͋ͧͪͨ͑T̋̌́̊ͣ̉Ę̆̀͐ ̡̔̑̈́O͌̍ͣ͂ͯͩỦ͆T̸̒͒̓̓͋͂ ͑̆̓͒̊́͋H̓ḮͨS̈ͮ͞ ̸̐ͣF̂̆̔ͤ̋UC̢ͦ̋̐K̡̇ͫͬINͪ̐̂͑̓͆Gͬ̀ ̛̎̑̓͋J̊Ǘ̓͐G̽̌̓ͫȔ̵̇̀L͒ͥ̿̓ͮ̌̕A͌̾ͬ̃͒R̈́̀.

SHE DIVES IN, SINKING INTO HIS THROAT WITH THE DELICIOUS SQUELCH OF SOFT FLESH, BITING THROUGH THICK SKIN AND TUBES AND BLOOD AND SWALLOWING AND DRINKING AND-

AND-

And-

Uh.

Okay, whatever old god is trapped inside you must be _really fucking dumb_ on its own because you literally just took a gross bite of the one thing that could stop it. Like, wow, you’re kind of disappointed here? You wanted to be an evil demi-god and awesomely destroy Aranea but nooooooooo, it just _had_ to fuck itself over and fill your mouth with really disgusting, really old, anti-magic mutant blood.

You free yourself from Kankri’s neck and shove him to the ground, violently spitting out some super dank-nasty corpse gunk. Kankri, as he falls, swings his arm up to point at you haphazardly. His face is the absolute picture of terror as he knee-jerkingly makes a motion like he’s pulling the trigger of an imaginary rifle. Your right arm with all your flesh melting off it starts to get very, very warm.

“Oh. Shit.” you say.

You hear the sound of an inflated bag popping as Kankri explodes your arm off of you.

You fall backwards with the force of the biomancy, not even trying to catch yourself. Oh Lady, _he shot off your arm_. He shot off your arm!

You land on your back at some point, but you don’t feel it, you don’t feel much of anything besides for your ears ringing from your own screaming. You clutch at where your forearm should be, but your hand just meets air and ground and warm blood and _oh goddesses, gods, fuck, fuck_ -

“ _< Ugh, everything has gone terribly, this was an awful battle! I can't believe you two! Kankri, stop her screaming, please.  >_”

Your pain comes to a dead stop, and so does your writhing. You’re stuck on the ground, rolled onto your side that still has the arm attached, and you can see three things. One: Kankri’s ankles in the corner of your vision. Two: Red sparks all over the stub on your shoulder, which probably continue down your whole body in order to keep you in one place. Three: Karkat Vantas on his knee, bracing heavily against his cane, and his bad leg splayed against the ground at an odd angle. He’s mouthing something, something over and over, and it comes as a shock when you realize it’s your name.

You didn’t think you got him that badly, maybe you left a bruise or something, but the problem is that you melted his brace. Oh, shit, you broke his brace. He said he was sensitive to any weight on his leg at all, which means he’s not going to be able to escape out of here anymore. _Fuck_.

You can almost feel Aranea rub her temples. “Jade, Karkat, may I just say you performed _terribly_. This damage to the plot is irreparable, as well as your injuries! Now you aren’t going to have a limb when you’re resurrected for real a sweep down the road, because I don’t have the patience to let you bleed out and die from this wound! I can't believe the both of you, hampering my vision, my story, my empire. You are making things much more difficult!”

She’s silent for a bit, and you can’t bring yourself to say anything to fill the quiet. You don’t know what to do, you don’t know what to do. Karkat’s not even looking at you, his head down, his hope sucked completely out of him.

“Thankfully,” she continues. “We still have one more plot point I can salvage! In fact, I’m almost excited we get to use the device, since the previous draft didn’t call for this. We’re going to have Karkat stand up.”

Karkat snaps his head up. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding-”

You scream in horror. “No! No no nonononoNO-”

“ _< I have no idea what’s going on, but would like to dissuade you from_ \- >”

“ _< Everybody shut up!  >_” says Arenea. “ _< This is happening, and I’m making it happen!_ > Come on, you can’t have this weird, oddly specific injury your whole life and never make use of it! Imagine the _sympathies_ we could stir up! This will draw in the crowd who loves to throw a good pity party; you’re going to be the matesprit hearthrob of my new empire, Karkat! Think about it: an attractive troll who can never be healed by normal methods, who cannot feel the touch of a mate on his whole left side… you’ll become the angsty bad boy flush crush. And besides, if resuming the chucklevoodoo curse ends up killing you, I’m actually doing you a favor! When I resurrect you, that whole injury will be gone.”

Karkat’s so mad you can almost feel the heat from his words. And in Alternian, too. “< _It’s not going to kill me, you absolute fuckhole! It’s going to-_ >”

“Bluh bluh, let’s find out! Oh, and his most important possession was destroyed in the battle-” She raises her arm, and uses her own necromancy to explode his cane. It falls into dust, and he topples forward without it. “-which is too bad!”

No, that was precious to him! She just blew up the most important piece of taxidermy in the whole world!

He’s screaming something in his local dialect now, his hands planted on on the ground, his voice raspy like it can’t handle the words he wants to yell out in absolute frustration. And you’re screaming too, trying to move, trying to do anything, but all that’s coming out of your mouth is, “Aranea, you- you- I am going to destroy everything you hold dear which apparently involves controlling us into one of your weird fantasies, which I am going to mess up even more! I can. Um. I can literally vomit all over Kankri's feet! Right now! I'll do it! How are you going to explain that part in your stupid takeover legend? Huh? Huh!? All the people listening are going to throw things at you! That's just overly convoluted if you include this weird stuff and then-”

“Oh, Jade, you would be a terrible narrator for an epic story. The good ones can save any tale, no matter how odd reality presents itself. Let us get started! I am very excited for this riveting new twist.”

Kankri’s ankles shift out of the line of your vision, and Karkat stops his yelling. Red sparks dance their way up his arms, and Karkat pushes himself off the ground.

His face is a terrible sort of calm as he stands, and you wonder if that’s from the biomancy or from his own emotions. He stands very, very slowly, using his good leg to push himself up, while his other leg follows. A few broken ropes peek out under the ripped fabric of his pants. He places both feet firmly on the ground, and stands like someone very much about to die.

The biomancy is still coursing all over him, providing stability for now, but it’s not going to stay that way. Kankri shifts all the weight over onto Karkat’s left leg, there is a deathly pause, and then the sparks go out.

Karkat’s eyes roll back into his head, he gives a very quiet gasp, and you hear the noise of something cracking.

It sounds like eggs being broken in rapid succession. It's much, much, faster than how Karkat described it to you. Thick, black cuts in his skin begin to crawl up his body, digging into his hand, into the flesh of his face. The fissures stay on the left for the most part, cracking over the bridge of his nose and his chin, just slightly crossing the center of his face. His mouth slumps to the side, like he's had a stroke, and his horn cracks with a loud 'thwack.' His left eye, and only his left eye, goes glassy white. Shit. It went straight to his brain, then.

He gropes automatically for his left side, a motion based on instinct alone, like he’s looking for his shoulder but doesn’t know where it is. He sinks to one knee, reminding you of a puppet who got half its strings cut, before falling face-first onto the floor.

You watch Karkat fall, in slow motion, and with a dawning horror you realize he’s really, truly not going to die from this. His soul is weird… dull, but still present. If his whole left side is completely shot and not coming back…

“You turned him into a vegetable!” you shriek. “Oh my _god_ , you turned him into a vegetable! He can’t be healed! He'll just be resurrected back into this vegetable body, _oh my god!_ What did you do? What did you do!?”

“Oh, well, I didn’t intend to do that. I thought it would just be no feeling left on that side! Relax, Jade, I’ll just kill him and soul trap him, like Kankri! It should cover for the damaged parts of his nervous system. Unfortunately, this means he won’t truly live again.”

You scream out, a whole slew of feelings ranging from absolute rage to utter sadness trying to make themselves known, but the only thing that manages to force its way out of your mouth is: “I can’t be a necrophiliac!”

“You don’t have to, any incentive to keep you preserved is now gone! I’m really very sad it worked out this way, but a tragedy is a tragedy, and I’ll take any narrative help I can get right now. < _Kankri, please destroy her body_.  >”

You’re going to die.

For real. No more outs.

No, no, you can’t give up! Rethink that, Jade!

You’re going to die if you can’t get out of here.

You’ve got to find something. Some kind of out, something. You’re a necromancer, you can do it, you will say ‘not today!’ to the Lord and Lady themselves. You’ll find a new body. Kankri stands over you, looking down at you with glowing blue eyes.

You sprawl out your senses, taking in everything you can, swallowing in the dead earth and Kankri and everything in between. You don’t see anything, nothing that can fit you, nothing that can take your entire soul besides for Kankri, but he’s already full! Fuck, fuck, your own body is going to be your coffin if you fail.

Kankri points his finger at your head.

Your mind goes into overclock. You reach out like lightning, reach out all your necromancy abilities as far as you can spread them, screaming for something to latch onto. You’ve got to escape, you’ve got to get out of here, but everything around you is too small! You feel molecules of dirt, a corpse of a rabbit, half-digested dead worms… Ugh, none of that is going to work! You’re too big!

“ _< Trigger warning._ >” says Kankri, regrettably.

Panic rushes straight to your head in the form of sheer adrenaline, and you extend your reach and your senses in a desperate last push. And... you think of something. Something your dead-sense didn’t pick up. A terrible, terrible idea, but it’s your last resort. You’re out of time. Oh, Lady, you hope you fit in there.

You’re dead before his biomancy hits you, dead before he kills you. You send every bit of your soul screaming towards the host with all you’ve got.

You _really_ hope Karkat isn’t able to be conscious for this. You’ve got a feeling sharing his half-dead body will really put a jam in your teamwork machine.


	36. Takeover

_She flies through the nervous system, flicking on binary switches like lamps to light up limp tissue. She runs on autopilot, soul fueled by years of fine-tuned training. She knows what levers to pull, what buttons to press, what knobs to turn, to create…_

… conscious thought.

Oh fuck yeah, it worked. You’re going to make it out of here.

Okay, okay, you have half a brain to work with, an unconscious, possibly vegetative Karkat taking up the other part, and a million and one bodily processes to coordinate in the span of a few minutes. You can do this.

Or, er, well, you _think_ he’s unconscious, you’ve really got no idea. You’re not exactly sure what you expected, but you thought it would be less… vague? You can feel a lot of nerves firing in his head really slowly, like, ‘not a normal level of thought’ slowly. It’s kind of weird to your necromancy senses that you can’t actually control said nerves, but you have no idea what they’re supposed to be doing anyway so it’s probably better if you didn’t fuss with them. Some of the processes are pretty obvious, like you can trace their electrical pathways down to the final goal of ‘keep heart pumping’ or ‘breathe’ but the higher thought stuff is a total mystery to you. The parts of Karkat’s head which still ‘live’ consist of millions of binary switches flipping on and off and not much else. Lame! You wanted to be able to read his thoughts. You brown noser, you.

You guess the hard part will be transferring some of the stuff Karkat’s keeping in check over to your domain. Hearing comes first, and that’s an easy one. You’ve already got the right ear hardwired in on the left side of the brain, all you have to do is just kinda finagle it like—

“ _< —in short, you can’t make me._ >” you hear Kankri say.

“< _Yes I can! I am actually very certain I can, as I have proved a countless number of times! >_”

Awesome! That wasn’t so bad! You think you’ll be able to take over everything you need super fast, Karkat’s really easy to drive.

“ _< Yes, but you’re missing the spiritual point of all of this. I know you’re undoubtedly going to force me into this, although I hesitate to say those words as they are rather presumptuous, and the act of resistance is key here._ >”

You need a plan of action. Unfortunately, any forethought you might summon up is blocked by the sudden need to smack Aranea upside the head. Wait… was that anger without grimbarkness? Oh, that feels so nice and clean, you didn’t realize it had been this long. Ha ha, suck it, old god, how’s it feel being _exploded in Jade Harley’s body?_

You don’t think you have a lot of time to plan before Aranea will notice Karkat isn’t alone in his body anymore, so you’re going to have to rely on a surprise attack. You’ll have to use your necromancy to very quickly bring down some earth around Aranea and Kankri. It’s a good thing Karkat is inherently speedy.

You hope being in Karkat’s semi-alive body won’t mess with your necromancy. You’re fucked if it doesn’t work, and you’ve only got one shot at this, so you might as well go for it. You think Aranea is standing near the remains of your normal body, so it should be no problem to surprise jump-up while shooting a big ol’ dead earth missile at the two of them. It’s time to roll.

You fill yourself through Karkat, reaching through every muscle, his deltoids and triceps and dorsals, his rhomboids and abdomen and vastus lateralis, pushing Karkat’s automatic processes gently out of the way wherever you find them. Oh, you forgot how _good_ he feels. This perfect machine, working beautifully with every movement of joint and spark, his body a sincere joy. Your body is a sack of potatoes compared to how delicate and light and well-trained his is. Wow, you want a body like this. When you find a new one, you are so starting a shadowboxing/balance beam regimen. The only fault you find is that you’ve got to use your necromancy to cover for his now super damaged dead leg, but it isn’t much of a bother to keep in check.

You should act soon, Karkat’s probably glowing in your color by now. No time like the present!

You take a deep breath to prepare yourself. Which is a stupid idea because you had to override Karkat to make that motion and all you did was inhale a bunch of dirt anyway. Whatever. Go go go!

With one very graceful leap, you push Karkat up and onto his feet, then promptly fall backwards.

You hear Kankri scream and Aranea yell out “< _My goodness, what-_ >”

Well, shit. You forgot about that pesky center of gravity stuff.

Unlike you, Aranea doesn’t miss a beat, and as you scramble Karkat to a sitting position, you can see the red sparks work their way up his living arm. Kankri’s trying to stop you in your place by holding down half of Karkat’s body. Fuck, you’re screwed, you blew it.

Wait… you can _feel_ it. You can feel the biomancy.

You can feel it work it’s way up Karkat’s arm, rapidly flipping on and off nerves and clamping down muscles where needed, while loosening others in its place. And if you can feel it do that, that means you can fight back! Karkat’s body is now a battlefield, and you’re so going to win this fight.

You concentrate hard on forcing Kankri out of Karkat, focusing on making his muscles and nerves and bones do what you want instead of what Aranea wants. And it’s fairly easy, actually. You’re not sure if it’s because Aranea’s power has weakened since she’s going through a proxy, or because she just doesn’t have that much knowledge of anatomy to even think of battling you in your own host. A chemical thrill flows through Karkat that you feel every implication of, which is weird because it’s your thoughts which generate the actual emotion, but Karkat’s making the neurological cocktail for it. He’s like, your emotional bartender drink dispenser, you guess.

Aranea and Kankri look absolutely horrified as you have Karkat stand up. You make sure to get the right center of gravity this time, getting used to how he balances. His core is a lot more gentle than yours, like he could flit away at any moment. You’re more like an unmovable rock, so this is a huge change.

“Jade…” says Aranea, and her quiet words echo throughout the cave. “… Jade, that’s you, isn’t it?”

“Yup,” you have Karkat say, and holy shit his mouth is huge. It’s like this chamber of booming sound and a lot of teeth that are kind of hard to keep track of. No wonder he yells all the time. “In the flesh!”

“< _I’m not sure what you’re trying to express, but it is far too high for my broodmate’s vocal range and it is making me feel very uncomfortable. I, and most likely Aranea, would strongly prefer it if you increased your sensitivity to Karkat’s natural needs._ >”

“Fuck you!” you have Karkat chirp, because really, what’s the point of talking through Karkat if you’re not going to swear a lot? You should probably call them a lot of creative insults too. “You… are an asspacket!”

“Ass… packet.” Aranea repeats. She looks confused.

“Yeah! You heard me! Asspacket! A packet of… asses!” You fold Karkat’s arms and nod politely. “And, you, butt package, are going to get a very firm smacking upside the head.”

“Oh, please,” growls Aranea, her necromancy flaring around her hands in blue. Kankri’s eyes roll back white and he crumples to the ground. Shit, she’s going full up! “I have fought frond and nub for a sweep to get Karkat Vantas here, and you will not be taking him from me! Not even if I have to ruin this story myself!”

You flare your necromancy through Karkat, and it comes out red instead of green on his living side. That’s… odd. Whatever. You have Karkat screw up his face into what you think is a very Karkat-y expression, and you yell, “Just fucking try it! You… fucking… fuckpacket!”

Hahaha, acting like Karkat is fun! He probably looks really cute right now. Really cute.

Aranea screeches, then thrusts her arms backwards, pulling forth a tsunami of dead earth from the cave wall, building up to bury you. Two can play at that game!

You call forth two pillars of earth from the ground surrounding Aranea, attempting to pierce her from either side, but Karkat’s right hand doesn’t grab the correct stuff. You miss, the pillar from his left side hitting its mark perfectly, but Aranea dodges out of the way into the open space from the lack of the other column. What?

She sends her wave forth from behind her, and pure earth and rocks rush towards you. You have Karkat crouch, bracing against the ground just in case, using his dead hand to stop the crushing flow in front of you with just enough berth for it to channel around his shoulders. You are at a severe disadvantage if you can’t use both hands for your necromancy! That’s only one power source, and you can’t grab any big dead things if you don’t have two hands to grab them with! What is going on?

Earth surrounds you on three sides, and you have no idea if Aranea moved from her spot or not. You have Karkat back up as you raise an earthen shield in front of you in case if she tries anything.

What do you do?

Maybe you can grab Kankri from here? That would be a good strategy, controlling him to take down Aranea. You close your eyes, to begin to dream of the dead and get a feel for where he is…

And _everything_ lights up.

Whoa.

Usually everything is color coded, but now... Now it's all one! Everything is a mass of beautiful light, all for your taking and manipulating. You can’t even discern what’s dead and what’s living, it’s all just this massive, yellow glow filling your vision, and you open your eyes. Lady, you know exactly why Karkat’s living hand doesn’t channel your necromancy…

Because his body is channeling biomancy instead!

Karkat could have been a biomancer too if he had gone through the years of training. If he had wanted to become that kind of person. And your expertise at calling forth the arts of the dead apparently applies to calling forth the arts of the living. It looks like necromancy and biomancy are extremely similar disciplines, so you’ve got all the skill to use what he didn’t. You… you can control _everything_ now, can’t you? There’s nothing, absolutely nothing, that can stand in your way! That's like, god-level powers! This is exactly what Aranea wanted, this kind of power to take over the world.

You start to giggle, which comes out of Karkat’s throat like someone rattling the bars of a cage.

“I would really appreciate if you didn’t laugh like that,” comes Aranea’s voice, booming around the cave. “It’s terrifying. Also, may I ask what is so very funny when this is clearly a tragic ending to a tragic narrative?”

You know how to use him now, how to use his body as an outlet. You spread his arms out as far as they can go, and you can feel all things, all life and death, in the space around you. You call out to the whole cave, everything, all the dirt and stone and little microbes and the shrine and it _rumbles_ under your senses. Pebbles fall from the ceiling as your power amplified through Karkat’s body courses through the space around you.

You part the earth in front of you, using your necromancy to move it aside with Karkat’s left and pulling up healthy living earth to replace it from the bottom. Aranea stands at the end of the corridor you’ve made, her brow furrowed in rage.

You give her a grin, and Karkat’s mouth definitely does not map well to the type of expressions you usually make. “I’m laughing because this is the most ridiculous scenario ever! Did you know Karkat could have been a biomancer, Aranea?”

You can hear her heart stop from here. “What.”

You thrust out his right hand, red sparks swimming across his palm, and you call out to Aranea’s body. It’s incredible, feeling every pulse in her throat, the inner workings of her organs, how her thoughts and receptors dance in electrical shots all the way down her body. There are so many things you could do right now, so many, and you’re not sure which to pick.

Aranea clutches at her throat as you just _slightly_ narrow her airway. Just a little, to make her as scared as she made you! It works, you can feel her heart pumping as Karkat's red sparks roar around you.

"You are in so much trouble, buster!" you have Karkat say. "When my mom gets wind of this, it's the friggin' dungeons for you! And it's going to suck!"

"Really?" She chokes out, trying to glare at you despite having the clear disadvantage. "You're not even going to tear me to pieces, make me irreparable? You're going to _arrest me?_ "

Maybe you should just put her to sleep for now, like a week-long coma or something. The monks will take care of her until some official can take her to Porkmor-Kahn for trial. Yeah, good idea! You can yell at her later then, when you have stuff figured out.

“Of course I am, I'm Neutral Good!” you have Karkat say, and you work his biomancy up through her spine, up to her cortex, pop a few select braincells, then travel back down to her brain stem and just kind of… flip the switch. "Goodnight!"

Aranea’s eyes shut in a blur, her head lolls back, and she falls to the ground with a very satisfying thud.

Victory! Sheesh, that was sure hard-earned. Time to make a pose! You have Karkat pump his fist in triumph, and you gotta say, the fist pumping abilities in your original body were much better.

After the initial joy of totally beating what was probably the toughest enemy you've ever had to fight, the long-term effects of this situation start to hit you with their buzzkill trudge. 

What do you do now?

You’re trapped in Karkat’s body. Heck, _Karkat_ is trapped in Karkat’s body. If Karkat could be healed by magic, your plan of action would be to sneak into a mortuary or something, find a new body, heal Karkat of his weird vegetable state, then have him play a game for your resurrection. Then, bam! You’ve got your old body back, possibly minus an arm, since that wasn’t part of the ultimate thing that killed you. You could definitely deal with that injury, as sad as it is.

However… That’s not an option. You’re definitely recoverable, but Karkat? Karkat’s going to be stuck like this unless you do what Aranea was suggesting and just kill him and soul trap him. But Karkat's told you many times he doesn’t ever want you to do the soul trap thing to him. You respect him! And you also don’t want to kiss and hug a cold corpse, even if Karkat is inside. Could… could corpses even get it up??? Urgh, maybe you shouldn’t think about that.

How are you going to bring him back? How can you?

You think… you think it’s time for some _divine_ help.

You know Karkat has a patron god, the same one as Kankri’s, but he’s called The Secret God for a reason. You’ve never met him and don’t feel like petitioning a god you don’t know for something very important. Besides, the 12 troll gods always want you to pledge your life for them or do weird murder quests for them and you never like those.

That would leave petitioning your patron gods. Karkat’s heart starts thumping fast with your nervousness, and you slow its beating to keep yourself calm. You can’t have yourself getting frightened! This is very, very important, to both you and Karkat. You’ve only met the Lord and Lady once, during your necromancer initiation, and it was very scary. Getting to them involves… Well, you’re going to go through with it anyway, you shouldn’t dwell on it or you’ll get frightened again. Just go through the motions, just get it all ready.

You wander down the earthen corridor you made, stepping gingerly over Aranea’s body. Walking with Karkat is a kind of jerky experience, since his muscles are built weird and you’re not used to them. You look for your own body’s remains, just a bit to the left of where she was standing, a big splatter of organs and blood and yuck all along the cave floor.

You dip Karkat’s hand into a larger pool of your original blood, carrying a bunch of it in his cupped palm. You wander him around all the earth you and Aranea dug up in your battle and find a relatively flat plane of floor that you can fit Karkat’s body on. You have him crouch, then tilt his hand towards the floor. You dribble your blood out from the center point you chose, making a large spiral pattern— the sign of Space: your symbol.

You use up all the blood in Karkat’s hand, so you take his fingers and have him brush the blood outwards to smooth things out and make it look nicer. You’ve only got one chance at this, and you can’t take risks! It has to be perfect.

When you’re finished, you have Karkat lie on the pattern you drew, his back against the ground. You make sure he’s centered on it, before folding his arms over his chest in a funeral position. You don’t bother to stop Karkat’s heart from pounding. You don’t like doing this, you don’t ever want do this again, but you have to. Do it for Karkat, Jade! Picture how happy and healthy he’ll be when he’s alive again, how things will be back to normal, how you and him are totally going to harass Aranea later, how he’ll look at you like… Like you’re his…

Sigh. You wish there was a better way to get to Death. But you suppose… You suppose this is the only sensible way to do it.

You focus yourself down, down to one single point in his body: his heart. You can’t just float away this time, can’t hide in some other part of him, you’ve got to go through with this. You calm yourself mentally, give yourself a figurative pat on the back for doing this, and in one very easy motion—

You stop Karkat’s heart.

Dying permanently feels like you’re getting forcibly sneezed out of reality. You wonder if Karkat’s feeling that too right now.

**********

It only takes a second. You wouldn’t have noticed anything had happened if you weren’t now standing up and the entire area around you is pitch black. Uh, wait, does that mean you’re still in Karkat’s body?

You tilt his head down to look at his hands. Okay, yeah, definitely still in his body. Why are you-

Karkat’s brain lights up like a firecracker, countless neurons roaring up and dimming in such a rapid succession you can’t even hope to interpret what’s happening. His mouth opens in a way that’s utterly outside of your control, and this high pitched scream echoes from his throat. You feel the vibrations of it, every little muscle and vocal process needed to make this expression of abject horror.

Oh, so _that’s_ what it’s like when he’s conscious. Whelp. You’re in for a test of teamwork.

You let him take over his hands and arms and stuff, kind of relax up a bit on what you’re doing to him. You decide that forcibly controlling him right now would be a Very Bad Thing. He might have a seizure or something!

He clutches at his hair, you can feel it painfully tug against his scalp. Ow! “ _< Holy ballsacks, you’re still in there, aren’t you? Oh my god, oh every pants-wetting god on high, this is not happening, you are not possessing me right now, you are not probably reading my every thought as I think it, Ha Ha, fuck, now I’m thinking about shit I should never, uh, I promise I wouldn’t want you to actually, in real life, hold me down and-_ >”

You can’t help yourself, you take over his mouth and lungs to let out a giggle. “Relax, Karkat,” you say through him. “I can’t read your thoughts! I can only see nerves and stuff, I can’t interpret them into actual words and emotions.”

“Oh shit, that’s weird.” he says, immediately after you finish your sentence. Just launches right into it, doesn’t even wait for his mouth to stop flapping. “It’s weirder than it was when I was unconscious, because at least then I was vaguely perceptive and willing. You possessing me just makes me want to battle you into submission in an epic battle of body dominance. Also, don’t laugh using my vocal hole, don’t even think about it, I sound like I’m choking on a dying cluckbeast. Your angelic musical tones should not play my rusted, chalkboard scraping xylophone of a grubchute.”

It is, in fact, pretty weird, and you also have to resist the urge to wrestle him into submission. You can feel every bit of him move without your command, and you feel like it should be your body to do with as you please! You have to remind yourself it’s his, not yours.

You could feel the words form on his tongue and lips before they come out of his mouth. Even though they aren’t your words and it kind of bothers you, it’s cool in a way. You know what he’s going to say from bodily cues before he says it. You wonder if he feels the same thing?

“Karkat,” you mouth, making sure to clearly form the words on his lips without making a sound. “Can you understand me like this?”

“Holy gods, yeah,” he says, immediately. “I can feel, like, your *intent* or something. Fuck, this is-”

OH, JADE, IT’S BEEN SUCH A LONG TIME! AND, OH MY, YOU HAVE A FRIEND WITH YOU! WHAT A PLEASURE IT IS TO SEE YOU BOTH!

_Klink, ca-chkink, whrrrrrrr-_

I HAVE TO SAY. YOUR BODY LOOKS. MUCH NICER.

Karkat jerks, his muscles reacting in automatic surprise, then spins the both of you around.

Electric shocks run all through his arms and legs, and you don’t have to know what higher processes they’re a part of to figure out that he’s battling off the fight-or-flight response. “What... the hell!?”

Karkat whips his head back and forth, like he's trying to talk to you and you're standing over his shoulders. Wow. "What the hell!? What the actual hell!? Who is this!? Wait, I know who it is because there are floating titles, but that's not the point! I know you culled me, er, us, but where the fuck did you take us?"

“I, uh, heh-” you mouth. “Karkat… I… Uh, are you any good at chess?”

Karkat Vantas uses all of his willpower to flip himself the double bird.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FYI I am working on a thing for Ladystuck so this might be the last update for about two weeks! Sorry about that, but it would have only gotten more cliff-hanger-y from here.


	37. Savior of the Dreaming Dead

The head flips again, from the Lord to the Lady. It pivots on this great, metal machine, older than time and more complex than life, its many gears squeaking against rust and oil worn into screws and hinges. The head clicks into place with a creaky ‘thwomp,’ and a cloud of dust poofs outwards from the bottom section of the box.

You remember your first, and only time, when you faced the both of them down. It was your necromancy initiation, after you had to do a scary thing to yourself in that blood ritual to get here. You were so, so frightened, and you can’t even be mad at past-Jade for being kind of a weenie, because Death is terrifying. But the Lady was so nice to you. When she played you in chess, she let you win. You heard she always does that to the newbies.

You don’t think she’ll let you win this time. You've heard she’s near perfect, that you should only come to Death themselves as your last possible resort because you might have to face her down in a battle for your life. 

It's entirely random selection, based on a flip of the head, who you'll be playing. The Lady is impossible, while the Lord is easily beatable. The chances of winning are always 50/50 no matter how good at chess you get, which doesn't sound so bad except for the fact that you get no second chances upon getting beaten. You're dead forever if you lose, whatever god you belong to taking you into their clutches and never letting go.

You've got to win. Even if you have to fight the Lady. You've got to beat one of them in chess and win both your lives and bodies back.

The Lady’s mandible hovers in place, then she pulls it up to the maxilla to tighten it in a sort of smile. Her voice is like a tomb bursting open. “IS IT… KARKAT? YES, THAT IS DEFINITELY YOUR NAME! YOU’VE DIED QUITE A FEW TIMES, YOU KNOW.”

It’s interesting to see that Karkat doesn’t think much about what he’s saying, just blurts it out as the thoughts arrive in his brain in binary switches. “Really? I had no idea I was so absurdly death-prone. Tell me more, please, tell me all about every single painful demise I’ve sat through as I stand here awaiting my eternal judgment.”

The Lady’s jaw tilts to the side and her glowing pupils roll around in their empty sockets. “SASSING DEATH HERSELF? WHY, JADE, YOU’VE PICKED YOURSELF A VERY BRAVE KNIGHT AND LOVER.”

“Oh, um… We’re not, er, um-” This is stupid. Karkat sounds like he’s got a terrible lisp when you make him stutter like that. “-Whatever! My Dear Lady, I’ve come to ask if you can give us back our bodies and lives. Mine’s all gone, and Karkat’s is… Uh, half gone, I guess? He’s kind of brain dead. Can you fix it?”

The head rotates, gears creaking away, and it clicks into the Lord slot with a poof of particles. “PLEASE. LIKE I COULDN’T DO THAT. MY POWER IS INFINITE, MY REACH GREATER THAN WHAT YOUR PUNY MIND CAN DREAM UP. GIVING YOU A NEW VESSEL. IS LIKE. EATING CAKE. OFF A BABY.“

This encounter would be really scary if you were in your own body, but thankfully you can keep Karkat’s heartbeats even and his muscles relaxed. Which helps a _ton_. Your only fear is mental, so it’s a good thing that one of the Death gods is very nice and the other is a baffling weirdo. It’s kind of hard to be scared when one of them says something like ‘eating cake off a baby.’

“Oh, that’s good,” you have Karkat say, trying to be polite. “I’ll play you for our normal bodies back. And maybe we’ll have to play two games? And Karkat can play for my own body, I suppose, since those are the rules-”

“HA. HA HA HA. RULES. SCHMOOLS. THIS IS A SPECIAL CASE. A CASE THAT REQUIRES SOME SPECIAL, SUPPLE ATTENTION. THIS IS A GAME FOR THE AGES. A GAME FOR THE NEW RULE BOOKS! HOPE YOU’RE READY TO MAKE HISTORY, BITCH, BECAUSE WE’RE MAKING THIS HAPPEN.”

The Lord floats to the side, spreading his arm out into the darkness. You narrow Karkat’s eyes, and it isn’t long before a floating chess set appears in a spotlight. A chair is set up for you on the white side. You take the hint, and start to walk Karkat towards the board.

The Lord said something about 'new rules?' You used to like chess a lot, but now you think it's kind of a boring game and you never want to play it, so any elaboration on it will be welcome. You wonder if you-

“Whoa,” says Karkat, in a flash of brain activity. “Whoa, Jade, I’m walking.”

You don’t think you could suppress his emotion even if you wanted to. Which you don’t, because it feels really nice! It’s the chemical cocktail for happiness. A warm, nostalgic happiness, like the kind you would feel if you smell your grandfather’s cigars or sit out in the Porkmor-Kahn sun with Halley. Happiness at something simple, a walking motion that you don’t ever have to think about in your daily life. His limbs loosen, his neurons pulse pleasingly down his spine, and you can’t help but split his mouth into a grin.

You know you have a very important chess battle to get to, but delaying is worth it to feel Karkat’s joy. You stop him, then twirl around on his left leg, his qipao swishing around him in a cool spread of fabric. You know why he likes those now.

“Fuck, wow, I didn’t think this would feel so incredible. I forgot what this independence was like, I feel like the Sufferer after he walked across a lake barefoot to kick his asshole disciple in the face.”

You would have been confused at that metaphor, but you can understand what he meant-- it’s a complete sort of happiness. You steel that feeling in your mind, Karkat’s joy, soft and precious. Kind of like him!

“I’m sorry, Karkat,” you mouth, deciding to keep your conversation private. You approach the chair. “I’ve got to sit down now to play the chess game.”

“You kick their asses, goddammit. I want your hot, living rump in my functioning fleshy hand sacks. Wait, fuck, the Lord is rubbing off on me, that was a terrible joke.” he mouths right back. He hesitates, neurons calculating something, before saying, “Thanks for letting me indulge. In the walking thing. It was nice.”

A brief flash of sadness flits through your head, but you stamp it down before it can turn into anything real. You brush down his qipao, then take a seat at your end of the board. Death floats to you, seating themselves at black.

The head is set to the Lady. You didn’t notice it change. Dang, does this mean you’re playing her? “LET ME GO OVER WHAT WE’RE ABOUT TO PLAY, SINCE THIS UNIQUE SITUATION REQUIRES AN EQUALLY UNIQUE SET OF RULES! I ASSUME BOTH OF YOU ARE FAMILIAR WITH DOUBLE CHESS?”

“I am!” you say through Karkat.

“I’m not!” Karkat says through Karkat, imitating you imitating him. He did a pretty good job of it too.

“UM, OKAY. WE DON’T WANT ANYONE LEFT IN THE DARK, SO I WILL ELABORATE! TRADITIONALLY, DOUBLE CHESS IS ONE PLAYER VERSUS ONE PLAYER, PLAYING WITH TWO FULL SIZE CHESS SETS STACKED NEXT TO EACH OTHER. IN ORDER TO WIN, A PLAYER MUST DECLARE CHECKMATE ON ONE, AND ONLY ONE, OF THE OPPONENT’S KING PIECES. WE WILL BE KEEPING THIS EXACT GAME, BUT THE STRATEGY AND RULES WILL CHANGE IN HOW WE PLAY IT! FIRST OF ALL, IT’S NOT JUST ONE VERSUS ONE, IT’S TWO VERSUS TWO, ALTHOUGH I BELIEVE JADE AND I WILL BE DIRECTLY COMPETING MOST OF THE TIME, IS THAT CORRECT?”

“Yup.” says Karkat.

Awesome. That means that you’re not _just_ playing the Lady, you’re playing the Lady and Lord at the same time! You can bet the Lord is going to butt in and make a huge mistake, which is how you’re going to win this. Yes!

“EXCELLENT! SECONDLY, AND THIS IS THE INTERESTING PART, THE KING IS NO LONGER THE ONLY PIECE WHICH HOLDS SIGNIFICANCE IN THE GAME. NOW, BEAR WITH ME, BECAUSE THESE ARE COMPLEX RULES FOR A COMPLEX SITUATION. YOU ARE, IN FACT, FIGHTING FOR ONE IN A HALF BRAND NEW BODIES AND YOUR RIGHT TO LIVE IN THEM. THE RIGHT ITSELF WILL COME BY DEFAULT WITH YOUR VICTORY, BUT WE CAN’T VERY WELL ATTACH TWO BODIES TO ONE KING! ESPECIALLY SINCE WE NEED TO RECREATE THEM FROM SCRATCH.”

“Recreate?” says Karkat. His right hand nervously twitches, and you don’t bother to still it. “You mean…”

The head turns, clinks, and the Lord grins. “IT MEANS IF YOU SOMEHOW MANAGE TO BEAT US. YOU WON’T HAVE TO BE A FUCKED UP WELFARE SAPPING CRIPPLE ANY MORE.”

Karkat’s face doesn’t change, but you feel his heart begin to pound. If you could win, if you could win this for him…

The head turns again, dropping to the Lady. “PLEASE EXCUSE HIM. WHERE WAS I? OH, YES, ANYWAY, ONE WHOLE BODY WILL BE ATTACHED TO THE KING BY DEFAULT. BUT THE HALF WHICH BELONGS TO KARKAT…” She pauses to pluck two queens from your side with gargantuan nails. “… WILL BE ATTACHED TO BOTH YOUR QUEENS.”

“So…” you say. Wow, Karkat’s mouth doesn’t do well with hanging pauses, you just want to keep his lips moving! “One quarter of a body is attached to each queen? We can lose both but still win the game?”

“YES.”

“And if we lose both but still win, can we split the damage evenly? Like we still get resurrected, but a quarter of my new body has something wrong with it that can’t be healed and a quarter of Karkat’s body remains paralyzed?”

“SOMETHING LIKE THAT, ALTHOUGH IT WILL BE DIFFERENT IN PRACTICE. BUT YES, THAT IS AN OPTION.”

That’s good. It would suck if you lost both queens and then one of you had to remain half-dead. You would just be back where you started! You guess splitting the damage is the de facto option if you lose both, then. But if you only lose one…

You raise Karkat’s hand over his mouth to have a private conversation. You don’t know if they can read lips or not, but better safe than sorry! “Karkat, did you get all that?”

“Yeah,” he mouths back. He keeps his hand over his face. “Jade, I know so little about chess it’s probably illegal on some level to be completely unschooled in a stratagem-based afterlife, but if there’s one thing I do know it’s that this game requires sacrifices. If there’s a time when you need to cull a queen in cold blood, don’t hesitate, because I’ll-”

You override him, easily flooding through the muscles and nerves required to take over his speech processing capabilities. “I’ll take the first queen’s damage, since I’ll be playing. It’ll be my decision, and my punishment. I’m not going to hear it.”

Karkat immediately launches back into his mouthing. His heart starts pounding, a sense of despair burning through his head. His objections are so genuine they hurt. “No, Jade, fuck no. I don’t want you to-”

“Karkat, I don’t care! I came here for you, and you’re my first priority because you deserve this. Really! I _felt_ how happy you were on two working legs, and I won’t take that away if I make a mistake in this game. I will do anything to get you that. Anything. If you try to take a burden I deserve away from me, I _will_ override you. It’s not an option!”

You wish you could read his thoughts right now, because his neurons take off in a storm of electric lights. He doesn’t respond physically, minus his heart, which slows to a solemn, resigned dirge. You guess it’s settled then. If you lose a queen, if you lose a quarter of your body, it’ll be your mistake to bear. And that’s okay, because you want Karkat to have a brand new body with everything fully functional. You know what you’re doing.

You lower his hand, and set it on his thigh.

“Alright, let’s begin the match.” You pause, then say your next line a little quieter. “Let’s dance, fuckass.”

Neurons light up in his head in a way that hopefully means he took it with good humor. The Lady seems to smile, although she’s almost always smiling, and settles in to her place across from you. You’d be a little nervous now if you were in your real body, but you’ve got absolute control over Karkat, so it’s easy to still parts from moving if they get worked up. It’s kind of cool to be able to put a hold on emotions like that. It’s really going to help if you don’t let nerves get the better of your thoughts.

You know your first move already, a preprepared beginning of a classic maneuver. You slip Karkat's hand over the nub of an impossibly smooth pawn, clack his sharp nails against the fine marble, and start the game.

Karkat’s a soft fuzz of neurons as you move it to H6, at which point he lights up a bit, then goes dim. You wonder what he’s thinking about. Trying to figure out what you’re doing? Attempting to remember chess stratagems? Just observing? Brooding? You’ll have to ask him later, right now, you need to focus.

The Lady moves her knight to N10. Ah, okay, she’s not starting with an advance of the pawn mass, you’re going to have to combat that with your own… Hmm, but what if… And if you do that then…

You focus everything on the game, everything you can spare, honing in on a zone filled entirely with your stratagems and planning. The board sprawls out in your mind (well, Karkat’s mind that you’re borrowing) like a spiderweb, each individual move traveling down their paths, branching off into more, then fading off the further away you get from the turn. You focus on them, making sure you’ve created each move tree appropriately, before decidedly placing a piece. You have all the time in the world, and you plan on taking it.

You capture her bishop, she takes two pawns. You take a knight, she takes yours in return. She puts you in an easy-to-escape check, and you drill down at the large pawn mass of double chess. It’s hard watching out for two queens instead of just one, four bishops instead of just two, but you manage.

Karkat interrupts when you’re about to place a pawn to D3, dragging you out of your daze with him mouthing, “If you do that, she’ll take a castle. It’s not worth it.”

You put his hand over his lips, then mouth in reply, “Yeah, but if she does that, then she’ll have to move her queen out of the way, and I’ll take her knight, see?”

“Right, sorry.”

“No, it’s okay. Keep interrupting me, you might catch something I miss.”

Karkat goes silent, and you go through with the move you discussed with him. The point’s apparently moot, because she doesn’t take your castle.

You’re doing good, racking up a steady pile of her pieces, getting closer and closer to checkmate. You’re not anywhere near finished, but this isn’t so bad. Your queens are safe, but on the flip side her queens are safe, and you’re both using them near perfectly. You put her in check with a movement of your bishop, and in response she moves her bishop to F11. You slip your queen up the row in order to take it out in the next turn.

Karkat’s hand moves to cover his mouth, and it jerks you out of the ‘chess zone’ again. “Wait, Jade, she’ll murder the shit out of the queen if you place it there, stab it straight in the spine lump.”

Urgh, wow, Karkat's head is throbbing with pain. You didn't notice you were focusing that hard. You're going to be so mentally pooped after this. Er, maybe, you're not sure if that's going to carry over to a brand new brain. You have to ignore the headache in order to answer Karkat.

“Oh, no, that would be really silly if she did that. If she took out my queen, there’s no possible way I wouldn’t take out both of hers in two fell swoops! And I might put her in checkmate too, depending on what she does after that.”

Neurons fire like gunshots in his brain. “Right, I see what you mean. I’ll go back to my dignified role of ‘passive observer’ then.”

He goes quiet, and you move the queen. The Lady anticipates this, thinks for a bit, and starts to do as predicted…

… But then her jaw jolts to a stop, her head lifts, and it rotates to the Lord.

“Fuck.” you have Karkat say, out loud.

The Lord clinks into place, his jaw swings into action, and his eyes roll towards the board. “MY SISTER SURE FUCKED THIS ONE UP. DIDN’T SHE? WHAT A JAM. I CAN’T BELIEVE SHE WAS GOING TO MAKE THAT MOVE. WHEN I COULD EASILY TAKE. YOUR QUEEN.”

“Fuck.” says Karkat, out loud.

You don’t know if it’s because you’ve got an iron grip on Karkat’s bodily processes or it’s because your emotional center decided to shut off in order to avoid any impact, but all you do is calmly watch as the Lord plucks a quarter of your body from the board and places it on his pile. Goodbye, some part of you. Probably your right arm, since that would be poetic. Sigh. It was nice knowing you.

You wonder if it'll be paralyzed? Or will it be totally gone from your body when you wake up, leaving you with a bleeding stump just how Kankri shot it off? And that doesn't seem enough for 'a quarter,' you wonder if you're going to lose feeling somewhere too?

You'll deal with it when you get there, you guess. You don't feel too worked up about it.

Karkat, on the other hand, is _incredibly_ worked up about it. You don’t let him summon any physical actions to make his emotions extreme, but you can’t stop his thoughts. “I’ll take it, Jade,” he says, pleading, forgetting to mouth it to you. “Please, please let me take it, I’ve been through this handicap recovery shit already, I don’t want you to go through that, that’s literally my worst nightmare if it happened to you, I don’t-”

You take over his mouth, shut him down immediately. “Karkat, what part about ‘not an option’ didn’t you understand? It’s my mistake, and I’m taking the punishment. You even warned me not to make that move! There’s no way I’m letting you take this burden on, because you don’t deserve it. I do. Is that clear?”

Karkat doesn’t respond, and you’re about to continue the game when neurological sparks fly to his hand. He moves it up to his face, then very gently breathes against the back of it, before pressing his lips against his knuckles. You wish you were in your own body for this, for him kissing your hand, because sure you can feel how soft and warm and great he is but there’s no butterflies or comfort getting generated. You can’t read him either, just these nonsense signals flying around his head. He sets his hand back down to his thigh.

Karkat goes dark. 

Almost completely, like he fell asleep or something. It feels like he’s unconscious again, sparks here and there and you don’t know where they’re going to but he’s mostly gone. Uh, that’s weird, what’s going-

“HA HA HA. YOUR QUEEN IS DEAD. WOMEN ARE WEAK.”

“Whatever,” you have Karkat say, then move your pawn to trap the Lord’s queen. “Let’s just… get on with it.”

With the Lord playing, the game is over in three turns. You take his queen, he takes your pawn in the second worst move ever performed in a life-or-death chess match, you take his other queen, he takes your pawn in the worst move ever performed in a life-or-death chess match, and then you put him in checkmate.

“FUCK.” says the Lord, out loud.

It definitely feels like a hollow victory. But, hey, at least you’re going to be alive? And… and Karkat’s going to be getting both legs back! You remember that happiness he felt when he was walking, picture that lighting up his face as he sees you, picture him healthy and wonderful and beautiful, and now…

Now it doesn’t seem so much like a hollow victory. You won Karkat an able body back. That's so cool! You did a very, very good thing, Jade! You did a very good thing.

“Karkat,” you mouth. “Karkat, what are you doing in there? I won! I got you back a nice pair of legs! Which I am going to feel up ASAP once we get out of here and I get healed up. If I’m not missing an arm or something. Then at least I’m going to have one arm to feel you up with, which is good enough for-”

You’re interrupted by the Lord sarcastically clapping. What an asshole. Thankfully, he’s interrupted in turn by the Lady switching her head to the main position.

“CONGRATULATIONS! YOU’VE WON! HOWEVER, I CAN’T LET THE RULES SLIDE! I’M SO SORRY FOR THIS, BUT YOU LOST A QUEEN AND THEREFORE YOUR RESURRECTION WILL BE PRICEY. ONE OF YOUR BODIES-”

The head flips to red. “-IS GOING TO BE FUCKED RIGHT THE HELL UP! SERIOUSLY, ONE OF YOU IS GOING TO BE A DAMN INVALID THE WHOLE REST OF YOUR LIFE!”

The head flips to green. “YOUR INJURIES ARE GOING TO BE VERY SEVERE, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO EXTREME BLOOD LOSS. YOU’VE PROBABLY GOT ABOUT TEN MINUTES TO GIVE IMMEDIATE AID TO YOUR COMPANION ONCE YOU’RE RESTORED. IF YOU FAIL TO AID THE OTHER, YOU WON’T BE ABLE TO ATTEMPT RESURRECTION ON THEM FOR THREE YEARS.”

That’s not so bad. Karkat’s a doctor, and he did a really good job on your wounds you took on when you got injured in the forest, and you trust him very much. He definitely won’t fuck it up!

The head flips to red. “THE CHICK IS GOING TO HAVE HER OLD GOD CURSE STILL, AS WELL AS A FUCKING NUB FOR A LIMB. STUFF WILL BE GONE FROM HER CHEST TOO. GOOD STUFF. TOO BAD.”

The head flips to green. “AND IF KARKAT CHOOSES TO TAKE THE INJURED BODY, HE WILL NEED-”

Flip. “-A SHIT TON OF BAND-AIDS. AND A SAW.”

Flip. “YES, QUITE A LOT OF BAND-AIDS. AND A SAW. AS WELL AS SOME SPECIAL CARE DUE TO OUR LIMITATION ON TRULY RECONSTRUCTING HIS BODY.”

The Lady grinds her teeth gently, thinking hard about something. “I KNOW THIS IS A TOUGH DECISION FOR THE BOTH OF YOU, SO PLEASE, TAKE YOUR TIME BEFORE CHOOSING WHO WILL RECEIVE THE ABLE BODY.”

Okay, you can live with this. No right arm for the rest of your life? Unspecified body parts missing around your chest? Magical curse that you still need to find the cure for? That’s no problem at all! You probably won’t be able to do much necromancy or magic anymore, since you really need both hands for that, but it’s not like you can’t make yourself a prosthetic. It’ll be hard, but maybe you can learn how to channel magic through a fake limb. Probably not necromancy though, and you’re going to have a hard time shooting, but whatever. 

And, hey, what’s another quest with Karkat to look for a different cure once you’re healed? You’d be glad to go on one more adventure with him. Anyway, the choice is really a no-brainer, even if you didn’t decide on this previously. You open Karkat’s mouth to tell the Lady that Karkat can have the shiny new body-

-when fifty billion neurons in Karkat’s mind rapidly fire in a violent blast of light. 

You’re sent careening out of control, completely shoved to the side in the command center of Karkat’s body. You’re pushed away by literally everything Karkat has to fight with, and before you can even begin to try to wrestle command back, he takes over every damn vocal process his body has to spare.

His back starts twitching like he's seizing. His hands grip the edges of the chair like he was trying to strangle it. His legs clamp up, muscles quaking. He's putting all his willpower into this, into locking you in tight and slamming all of his mental weight against yours. And he says it, he says the worst thing in the world, in the most casual voice you’ve ever heard him use. 

“Give Jade the new body.”

What?

No!!!!

No!

“Can we get five extra minutes to talk?”

That idiot! Where did he even come from!? How did he do that!? Ugh, why did he have to learn how to use his body right now!? You don’t have time to think, you’ve got to fix this, you’ve got to change their decision! Karkat doesn’t deserve this! It’s not fair!

You try to fight back with everything you have, try to flip switches and send electric pulses to gain back some sort of control, but Karkat’s mental processes are unwavering. He’s fighting with everything he’s got too, absolutely everything, and you're not on your A-game, you're all spent from that chess battle and possessing him and…

No, please, you don’t want him to do this! This is permanent! You don’t want him to sacrifice anything for you! Nothing more, please. You can’t do this. You’re not a doctor, you can’t get him help in ten minutes, it was your mistake, you can’t fix it, yours alone, he’s going to _die_ and you’re not going to be able to help him, you made a mistake, you can’t let this happen, you can’t, you can’t-

“VERY WELL,” says the Lady. She reaches out one giant, skeletal hand. “YOUR REQUEST WILL BE HONORED. FIVE MINUTES. IF JADE MAKES ANY MOVE TO PREEMPTIVELY AID YOU, KARKAT, THE TEN MINUTE TIMER WILL START TICKING DOWN. I GRANT YOU BOTH THE GIFT OF LIFE, AND GRANT JADE A MORTAL VESSEL APPROPRIATE FOR HER STATION. FAREWELL, AND WHEN WE CROSS PATHS AGAIN-”

The head flips to red. “-MAY JUDGMENT BE HARSH AND YOUR DEATH PAINFUL.”

You black out.


	38. The Final Sacrifice

In that second of undeath, that second of birth where you’re torn apart and stitched together again, made whole and bitter, your heart burns in flashes of desperation, sadness, and _boiling fury_.

You wake up where your old body was exploded, in your dress and leathers, and you don’t waste a single minute lying there feeble and useless. You wrench yourself up and you feel like you’re on fucking fire with how _angry_ you are. You won’t let this go. You won’t _ever_ let this go.

You scramble to your feet, booking it to the spot where you placed his body. He’s still where you left him, looks exactly how you left him, eyes closed in a perfect funeral pose, and you skin your knees on the floor as you collapse over the top of him.

He looks the same. Exactly the same, cracks gouged up the side of his face, no body parts missing. What did they do to him?

You straddle him, wrench him up by the collar with both hands. He follows like a ragdoll, his head lolling back, his arms falling like they’re sticking to the ground. Fear almost overrides your anger then, did it not work? Is he still dead? But then he opens his eyes, blinks once, and smiles at you.

His smile, his smile is just _wrong_. Completely wrong for the situation, grossly inaccurate, grossly sick. That grin isn’t just ‘good to see you’ or ‘I’m happy to be alive.’ That grin is _victorious_. Like he _won_. He is _radiating_ triumph even now, even fucking now!

He didn’t win! He didn’t-

“Hi again, idiot,” he says. His voice sounds the same, it’s all functional, all Karkat. “Today’s the day you cured your cur- fuck it, I don’t care. I’ve finally got you on top of me and look, can’t even summon up a hokey outburst to seduce you into a five minute quickie.”

“That’s not funny, stop it,” you spit out, and your words feel like fire. “Stop it.”

His face softens, the grin just slightly fading, and he lifts his right arm up around you. He draws his ring finger down your cheek where your scar used to be. He traces the pattern he drew every day for three months, with perfect precision, and you feel like curling up like a dead leaf.

“Kind of an ass-backwards way to do it,” He finishes with an imaginary dot. “But I guess the quest was successful.”

Tears start trailing down your face. You’re not even sad, you just feel so overloaded, like you’re leaking because this is the only way your emotions are going to make it out of you fast enough. You choke out the closest thing you can compare to the utter rage and despair you feel. “I hate you.”

He presses his palm flat against your cheek, he feels so cold. “Say that in Alternian, moon and stars, and it might mean something.”

“ _< I hate you_.  >”

“Nope, still nothing. You suck gargantuan bulges at this language, the emphasis was all on the wrong vowel.”

Flem builds up in your throat, and your voice gets hoarse. “< _Stop. Just stop, Karkat. Why did you do that._ > Why would you do this to yourself!?”

Karkat narrows his eyes, that stupid grin finally disappearing, and his voice rolls out harsh like your own.

“Plenty of reasons, plenty of good, good reasons which I will be happy to indulge for you in great detail when we’re not on a time limit. How about this: because you’re dear to me. Because I would have summoned up all of my vast amounts of rage to do whatever I could for you, to prevent you from going through what I had to go through four years ago, and probably will have to go through now. Because I know losing your ligament and whatever other inane shit they had planned for you would drive you up and exploding out of the wall. It wouldn’t be because of whatever handicap came with your arm flying off to the afterlife, it’d be because of how your friends would react. How… How *I* might react. I couldn’t do that to you. I didn’t want you to go through that. Good e-fucking-nough?”

“No! No! What!? What are you talking about, how my friends would- what!? Wow, if you really, really cared about me, if you really cared about what I wanted, you wouldn’t have stolen my own mistake from me! I, ugh, I can’t believe you!”

You choke out a sob as you grip his collar tighter, pulling him closer to your face. You can feel each heavy breath he takes on your cheek, which makes you feel even worse because he’s not going to be breathing much longer! You’re not going to be able to save him! You don’t have enough time to heal him, you just have enough time to talk about what a complete idiot he is, and then he’s going to be dead for three years! You fucked up, you fucked up so bad, you-

You don’t know what to do. But you yell your feelings out anyways, even though the sound wracks your body and it hurts and it hurts to scream out at him but you have to do it.

“I can’t believe I keep falling for this! This self-sacrificial bullshit! I thought you were different! I thought you wouldn’t do the same thing as Dave did to me! Except it’s a million times worse because you _knew_ , because you know me. I feel like dying, Karkat. I literally feel like dying because I did this to you, because I want you to feel guilty right now, because I feel bad about wanting you to feel guilty, because you’re going to die for real soon, and I won’t be able to see you for three years, and I should have taken it because you could have helped with my injury, and it’s not going to be me when it _should be me_! It should be me!”

“Fuck you, I’m not Dave-”

“Is that all you got from-”

“-Look, we’ve both got that knighthood ‘save your mage at all costs’ deal going on, I’ll give you that, and you and I will shoot every single shit in existence about it later, but as for what comes after The Final Sacrifice? You’re going to get me help. And you’re actually going to succeed at it this time. I’m not going to turn into the bird allegory for one in a half sweeps, not going to die for one in a half sweeps. I’m not gambling on that. Well, okay, maybe I’m gambling a little, but I like my chances and I’m throwing every fucking boondollar down on Jade Harley.”

You’re so _angry,_ filled with such blistering rage you want to scream and cry and shake him, but you don’t have time, you don’t have time to say what you want to say!

“You’re going to die, Karkat! I’m not sure what to do, I only know first aid basics and you’re covered in scars that are probably going to start gushing blood any moment now and I don’t know _shit_ about what to do with you and-”

“There’s a doctor in that loadgaper of a village we meandered through on our way up here. She’s used to working with Kankri and I, no magical aid in that office.”

You feel like you’re breaking apart, shattering into a billion shards.

“I can’t get down the mountain that fast! It would take twenty minutes at my fastest, I can’t get you help, it’s just like before, I can’t-”

Karkat’s yelling now too, breaking your sensitive ears with his volume. “Jade! Listen to me! You can do it this time, and I’m not half-ass guessing at a solution like Dave was. I’m operating on cold hard facts, on science, and I know you have a massive human hard on for science. I know you can get me help in ten minutes, far less than ten actually, because I watched you do this. I watched you do this thing right in front of me, and I know it was you, not that bizarre curse machination. I took the queen and I’m playing this game because I trust you’re going to fucking win for me, without a doubt. And do you know why I know that?”

“Because you’re Jade Harley,” he says. “And you’re a quarter demigod.”

Oh.

_Oh._

You know what you have to do.

Your tears stop, like someone turned off a faucet, and a deathly calm washes your rage away.

You feel nothing, nothing but a sense of _ability_ , a sense of what that old god pulled from you in the battle, and that’s all you ever needed. Your voice rattles out of you without your consent, quiet and shuddering. “Karkat Vantas. I will get you help.”

“Yeah you will.”

“ _< And then I’m going to murder you._ >”

He smiles, and it’s slow and crooked, and you know it’s the last one he’ll be able to make for a while. “Wrong ‘murder’ verb, love.”

You stand up, step to the side, bend, and scoop Karkat into your arms. As soon as he’s settled against your shoulder, as soon as he loops his unscarred arm around your back, the ten minute timer starts.

His leg blossoms into a heavy burst of blood that soaks the fabric instantly. Your hand against his thigh gives in a few centimeters, like you’re suddenly grabbing gelatin. Blood squeezes out like a sponge, bright red down your fingers, dripping down to the floor in loud squelches. His scars start to ooze with something thick and pale pink, and the iris of his left eye bursts into a cloud. He gives this slight little choke, like someone punched him in the stomach by surprise, and he falls unconscious against your shoulder.

You focus on the goal, the destination, where you want to be and exist with Karkat, and summon up all your green light, summon up everything hidden in your genes and everything your dad ever gave you.

You teleport to the village.


	39. Stay Well, My Dear (Part 1)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In lieu of making you guys wait for a million years for a super long chapter, I'm splitting this up into two parts. Second part is mostly written (it will take maybe two or three more days). Sorry about that!

You dream of Karkat, calling you his love, whispering sweet nothings into your ears as he guts you and your yellow princess dress with a scalpel.

Ew. You wish your dreams were less symbolic sometimes. This heavy handed imagery is too much! Especially since all your intestines are falling out now and you’ve got a feeling he’s not going to help you clean them up. He pushes in harder, leaning against you, telling you you’re the most precious thing in the world as your heart falls out of your stomach and-

“ _< Jade? I am very sorry to wake you up, but I’m finished._ >”

“Muh?” you say, with the taste of cheap puzzle in your mouth. You blink your eyes open, fumble for your glasses, and push yourself up.

It’s… uh… daytime. Judging by the light from the courtyard exit, anyway. You guess you fell asleep waiting for Kanaya to be done, it was taking hours and hours and weeding her garden and solving a 500 piece puzzle upside down in the parlor was definitely not enough to keep you from freaking out. You think you might have panicked yourself to sleep, which, good for you, you guess? Ugh, not important!

You grab her by the shoulders as she leans over you. “ _< What happened!?_ >”

“ _< Um, can I sit down? Please._ >”

You let her settle next to you in the cushions, and you don’t fail to note how big the bags under her eyes got. She clears her throat, doesn’t look at you, and says, “ _< He’s… fine. The ———— ——————— gland was —————— ——————— ————— in ———— —————— and in two ———————. Remnant chucklevoodoos were removed at the cost of ——————— ———— ———————— ———— ———————— but successful, —— ————— ——————— tendon needed to ————————— ——— and wrapped around in order to fully heal and preserve the body. He will be here for quite some time, but I don’t have much else to do besides for weekly maintenance on Kankri, so it is not a problem.  >_”

You _really_ should have studied Alternian more. You might know what she was talking about if she was addressing you in Common, but trollian medical vocab is completely lost on you. You bite your lip, impatience getting the better of you. “ _< Can I see him?_ >”

“ _< I can’t recommend that due to quadrant-_ >” She pauses then, her eyes flicking over to you. You’re unable to read her face. “ _< Actually, it should be alright, you are a human after all and would not understand. He has been awake for some time, and coherent for the entirety of the bandaging process. I moved him to the recuperacoon in the care block. Please understand that after a traumatic operation such as this, people need time to recover and often say things they don’t mean. Be patient.  >_”

She stands up, carefully rubbing her eyes. “< _Um, anyway, I will be taking what is quite possibly the longest nap of all my life in order to sleep off the stress that built up, but do not hesitate to wake me if needed._ >”

“Okay. _< Thank you so much, Kanaya. So much. I’m going to repay you ten times over for this, really._ >”

Kanaya nods, then makes her leave through a door at the far end of the parlor. You stand up too. You feel really groggy after falling asleep like that, but you think adrenaline’s going to carry you through whatever comes next.

Kanaya’s house-combo-office is a bit bigger than you expected: it includes a craft room, parlor, operating room, care room, Kanaya’s own living space, and a beautiful (albeit small) courtyard that you angrily weeded by moonlight to keep your hands occupied. You speedwalk through the whole thing, your heart on overdrive as you approach the room where Karkat’s resting. You place your hand on the knob, and with a hitch in your breath, you open the door.

The first thing that strikes you isn’t even related to Karkat, it’s just that this room is so blindingly _white_. It’s probably a medical thing, but do all the pillows in the corner, and that weird couch thing, and the chairs have to be bright white too? The daylight shining through the window on the opposite wall doesn’t help anything either, it just makes everything super reflective.

You spy Karkat in an entirely open recuperacoon attached to the wall. It actually looks more like your big clawed bathtub than anything else— you suppose it’s made that way for easier access. He’s sunken into it, his head lolled back against the edge of the tub, and all you can see of him are the bandages plastered on half his neck.

You feel hollow as soon as you see him, like you want to reach out to him and protect him forever and ever because that’s the only way you’ll ever make this up to him.

You don’t dare say his name as you slink over to the tub, and you notice he doesn’t lift himself up so he can see you. Without looking anywhere but his head (you’re pretty sure he’s stark naked minus for some bandages, and this sopor is pretty transparent. Gotta be respectful!) you lean over him.

He is, in fact, conscious and staring at you. With the one eye that isn’t covered up by a big puffy bandage, anyway.

“Hey.” he says. And half of his mouth is kind of taped up, so it comes out as a scratchy ‘ey.’

That greeting makes your heart sink.

He looks absolutely pitiful. He’s all wrapped down until his collarbone, at which point his body is in the sopor and no extra aid is needed. His bandages are weirdly applied, only continuing entirely around his head when absolutely necessary. His hair is tucked back behind his ear, something shoved in his auditory canal and thin strips of cloth wrapped around it. His broken horn has some kind of glue-like substance holding it together, squeezing out transparent amber drops between the cracks. A light pink stain is seeping through cloth on his cheek like watery bubblegum.

“Karkat…” you don’t know what to say. So you ask the obvious. “What did they take from you? Can… you… can you not move anymore?”

Karkat’s mouth stretches terribly to respond to you, and you feel bad having to watch him talk. He's so sloppy, his words tripping over each other, like he's sleep-talking. Oh goddesses, you did this to him, you’re the one whose mistake is causing him pain right now…

“Hell no, I’m mobile as a barkbeast in a meat factory. Well, at least in the life-ending paralysis way you’re referring to,” he says, and it’s kind of hard to understand him with how he has to slur his speech. “Everything hurts like shit though, almost hurts as much as how you’re looking at me.”

“I… huh?”

You scan his face for some kind of hint as to what he’s feeling, but you can’t tell because half of him is covered up and the other half looks default angry and not at all like how he sounds and you _wish_ he’d stop ranting, it’s probably hurting him so bad…

“I could lay real money down on how those green globespheres are going to open up much wider in a terrible void of terrible feelings *real* soon. I can’t believe you didn’t notice what’s gone, you’re such an insane amount of literal dork. You probably thought you were being respectful.”

His voice is so horse and sloppy and quiet, it’s killing you. “I don’t…” you stutter out.

“Look down. I don’t mind. Not like my bulge is out or anything. Surprise, turns out I don’t have a ‘sore dry pain and sterile hospital’ fetish. Sorry to break your bloodpusher.”

You bite your lip. You wish he wasn’t trying to act like this, it makes your heart sore. You carefully let your gaze drop, down his chest covered in cracks, abdomen with a few stitches over the bigger gouges, hips… And you can’t see everything crystal clear down there, since the sopor gets more opaque green the further away from you it is, but you think you can pick out-

“Oh my god,” you say. You have to cover your mouth with your hands to keep from retching.

His left leg is completely gone.

All that's left is this... stump. Kanaya must have amputated at the upper thigh, probably as far down as she could, because there isn't a lot remaining. There's a thick compression bandage over it, and- and-

You _really_ feel like throwing up. Not because it’s gross, but because your stomach decided to freefall into this terrible pit of emptiness and shame and regret and _fuck_ -

“I’m so sorry,” you say through the palms of your hands. “I’m so sorry, I’m so so sorry, < _I’m sorry, I’m so sorry_ \- >”

You can’t even tear your eyes away, your thoughts veering off of a rational route and going straight into anxiety town. How in the world is he going to be able to walk? Prosthetics at the current level of medicine are primitive, and even the good ones usually have magical knee and ankle joints that he wouldn’t be able to use. You literally took away his ability to walk, with one stupid, stupid mistake. This should have been you, this should have been you sitting there, you wouldn’t have minded, this should have been-

“Jade, look at me.”

You yank your eyes up, and it’s easy to interpret the emotion behind his glare this time: he’s dead serious.

“I want you to one hundred percent believe me when I say this was worth it. It was worth it to prevent your arm getting chopped off. And selfishly, it was worth it to not have me looming over you instead, looking at you like you’re some kind of wounded miniature barkbeast. I would have hated myself. You would have hated me. That alternate universe would have been more painful than this scenario.”

The empty feeling in your stomach isn’t going away, you can’t lower your hands. You want to yell, but you feel like you’ll break Karkat if you raise your voice. You can only whisper. “I can’t believe you! I can’t believe you think yourself so _worthless_ that you’d throw away your leg for me! Look at you, Karkat, you’re p-”

“Pitiful?”

That makes you lower your hands. Karkat doesn’t even flinch. He rolls his eye, tries to sigh, and says with a very deliberate voice,

“Do you pity me.”

It wasn’t a question.

“I…”

Karkat grins in the way you would imagine a starving person would while looking at their last rations. “And… there it is. I expected this to happen. Don’t worry, Jade, everyone did this before. It’s just like when I got crippled, ha ha, but apparently that was just the practice round.”

You grip the edges of the tub, and everything inside you feels like a big void. “I don’t pity you.”

Karkat narrows his eye, his grin turning into a snarl. “Please, don’t up and lie to my bloodpusher like that, it’s like twisting a knife into it and letting me bleed out in a puddle of piss and uncontrollable bodily fluids. You should be *yelling* at me right now, Jade. You should be *mad.* I saw how mad you were before we got here, and what, add a little amputation and all that anger drops off the face of the earth? You’re literally fucking shaking with how much pity for me you’re generating right now, and just because half of my viewglobes decided to temporarily shit themselves doesn’t mean I can’t see it.”

Your emotions are a spinning, desperate mess, and you can’t make heads or tails of them. “Karkat, I don’t know what I’m feeling, please…”

“Oh my god, you’re *whimpering,* that’s just awful. Thankfully, I know how to fix it this time around. I know what to do this time, I know how to save this awesome thing we’ve got going like a timecapsule buried in a grub bog, saving it for later where we have a big ceremony to open our romance back up where there won’t be a single lick of this shit eating pity. Where it won’t be around to ruin our relationship.”

He closes his eye, and you have the feeling he’d turn his head away if it didn’t hurt him so much. “Jade. I’d like you to leave. Right now. And don’t look back for a long, long time.”

Now _that_ emotion is crystal clear. Your stomach drops to new lows. “What? Karkat, I’m not leaving you. That would… That would break my heart.”

He tries to make some kind of gesture, but winces at the slightest twitch of his shoulder. “Fuck, I know. I know, believe me. Don’t make this any harder than this has to be. This is already an erect muscular bulge and we don’t want to arouse it any more. Just trust me. Trust this more than any other chunk of hot air that I have spewed from my mouthflaps when I say: If you leave right now, if you resist taking a gander at me for a perigree or so, things will be better. I’ll be stronger then, and not pathetic, and hopefully mobile, and we can pick this shit up right where we left off. I’m fucking begging here, see, appealing to your new-found red feelings. Please leave.”

“No,” you say, and holy shit, you actually are whimpering. “No, I want to stay and help take care of you, please. I did this to you and I want to help you get better.”

Karkat stares at you for a long time, before his brow furrows, his mouth shifts, and he clicks his jaw to the side. You hear something crack.

He opens his mouth wide, and the bandages over half of it rip along with the gouges in his lip, pink fluid oozing through the cloth. He doesn’t even wince, just glares at you, and says in his painfully normal voice, “Get the *fuck* out.”

You jerk up and away from him in surprise. Oh gosh, he’s hurting himself, he’s-

“Get out, Jade, get out! Out! Out out out! You are not going -ow, shit- to look at me -ow- f-for a single second longer! Out!”

You’re so shocked and confused and dazed you actually follow his instructions. A picture of your room in Porkmor-Kahn pops into your head, and without even thinking, you teleport yourself onto your bed.

Your room is empty and unbearably quiet, your curtains drawn open to let in the early afternoon light, as spic and span as your mom demands the maids keep it.

You stare at a pink tapestry covering your wall for quite some time before registering that yes, that all certainly happened.

“Do I pity you?” you say to your room. “I promised I wouldn’t…”

You lie back on your bed, arms spread out, and stare up at your colorful canopy. You want to think about what just happened, but you can’t get your head together. You feel spread thin, like Karkat ripped apart your brain and you don’t even know how to begin to assemble the pieces.

You start crying. Just slow, warm tears dribbling down your cheeks, leaking out your feelings. It’s kind of nice. For like, two seconds, anyway, before your brain decides to drive into deep dark sadness town and you totally lose it.

You turn into a driveling, hiccuping ball of pain. You just burst into a flood of tears and gasps and your mouth stretches open to let out your _stupid_ wailing and you really don’t know how to react to this so you try to curl up against your pillows for some kind of comfort. It doesn’t help at all, it just makes the cloth all wet as you press your face against it and being uncomfortable makes you bawl even harder. You feel like you're coming apart, like your body wants you to come apart and is doing all it can to rip you in two.

You haven’t been this much of a mess since… well, since ever.

There’s no hope of gathering your thoughts now, now that you're shivering and sobbing and your stupid brain is determined to keep you that way. There’s always tomorrow, right?


	40. Stay Well, My Dear (Part 2)

You spend the next two days depressed and ignoring all your problems.

Like, you don’t even leave. You just ask the maid to deliver carbohydrates in various forms to you and tell her to place it on the floor if you’re asleep. And you’re asleep a lot. You stopped crying off and on during the first day, but you managed to replace the tears with a huge amount of restless naps. You don’t sleep long enough to dream, and it sends you into this cycle of gross grogginess that you don’t think you want to exit.

You don’t want to think about it. So you’re not going to think about it. You’re determined to eat and do simple math problems and read books that are only non-fiction and scientific and stay that way for months and months. Which doesn’t seem so long, honestly, since these two days passed by pretty quickly in a hazy blur of sadness.

You’re sitting on your bed in your pajamas and half-heartedly trying to solve what should be a really easy eingenvector transformation when the lock on your door starts rattling. You stare at it, confused, just watching the knob click back and forth until your door bursts open in a blast of John Egbert.

He vaults over Vriska, who is squatting with a huge lockpicking set over her knees, and flies right up to your face. He hovers over you, slaps his hands on your shoulders, and says,

“Are you sick? You look sick. Where’s Karkat? Why didn’t you tell me you were home!? How did you even get here, I didn’t notice you come in the castle!!??”

“I… Um…” Oh gosh, he looks really upset. You flick your eyes over his shoulder in an effort to avoid answering him, and spy Vriska sauntering over to you. She’s in an orange and yellow thief outfit and she kind of looks like…

… like her _sister_.

“Oh my god!” you say. You put your hands on John’s shoulders in shock. “Oh my _god_ , I forgot about Aranea! I’ll be right back!”

You think you hear Vriska start to say “< _What._ >” behind John, but your hypothesis is never confirmed because you’re currently teleporting to Kankri’s monastery.

Aranea is in the exact same place you left her in the big cave. She’s positioned nicely, which makes you think the monks must have turned her over a few times so she didn’t acquire sores. Kankri’s nowhere in sight, since they probably put his body in a cooler part of the mountain to keep him from decomposing. You pick up Aranea and teleport straight back to Porkmor-Kahn.

John and Vriska scream and scramble for cover when you return to the middle of your room in a flash of green.

“Hi, sorry,” you say, over their shrieking. You dump Aranea not-very-gently on one of your cushions, because fuck her. “I discovered I can teleport? Um, also, I put Aranea in a coma and totally forgot about it until now. She was being really weird and trying to take over the world.”

John is holding a cushion over his face in a terrible effort to defend himself. “Okay, what? You are explaining yourself right now, young lady, or… I dunno, I do something threatening.”

You look at the both of them, John slowly lowering the pillow and Vriska crawling out from under your pile of squiddles, and think real hard about telling them your whole story. Sure, you’d tell John at the drop of a hat, but Vriska? Well, maybe she deserves to know. It’s her broodmate, after all. You’ll just skip over the whole ‘Karkat doesn’t want to see you anymore’ thing.

You launch into the story, telling them absolutely everything that happened at the monastery, and then summarizing the chess battle and Karkat’s eventual amputation. And that last item turns out to be really hard to talk about, so you kind of laugh-stumble your way through it in three sentences. You lie and say he was still asleep, so you came here. When you finish, you’re all sitting comfortably in the corner where you and Karkat had your Talk just a few days ago. Aranea’s splayed in an uncomfortable looking way between the three of you.

“Wow, Jade,” says John, wide-eyed. “You played chess with Death and _won?_ That’s so cool!”

That makes you feel really guilty. It’s not cool, you chopped off Karkat’s leg! “Er, yeah, I guess…”

Vriska kicks back her feet over Aranea’s chest. She looks thoughtful, like you interrupted her in the middle of uncharacteristic self reflection. “< _How can you resist him?_ >”

That’s not the question you were expecting. “What?”

“< _If that were me, I wouldn’t have left his side for a second. I wouldn’t be here. I would be sitting in some chair next to him and seducing the shit out of that pathetic redblood. Which, honestly, wouldn’t be hard with the sad state he’s in! He’d probably jump me._ >”

“What?” you and John say at the exact same time. John sounds way more offended about it though.

Vriska looks between the two of you like she’s trying to figure out why she’s the only sane one in the room. “< _Seriously? You don’t get it? How can you not pity him? That he valued himself so little he’d give everything up for someone else?_ >” She makes these grabby-hand motions, like she’s groping Karkat’s imaginary ass. “< _Don’t you just want to… feel his super attractive injuries up? Coddle him to death? Make fun of him? Kiss his stupid face until he starts crying? Karkat got a hell of a lot hotter with that little stunt. 8/8 on the matesprit scale, and I don’t give out that rating lightly. If you’re not going to take him, Jade, I would love to have him as my royal side bitch and fuck that stump so hard. The hardest. You are so lucky you got saddled up with a stallion like him._ >”

You and John look at each other, horrified. You’re glad your mom passed down some really good expressions down to the both of you. John manages to stammer out a “Really, Vriska? Really? Karkat, < _a stallion?_ >”

“< _Whatever, John! It’s just superficial! You know my pity for you runs deeper than that. How ever did you think you were going to run an empire without *me?*_ >”

John laughs. “Okay, Vriska, you keep telling yourself that.”

She pauses, thinking. “< _Although it would really help if you chopped off a leg for me._ >”

“Not going to happen.”

Your brother is so weird. You make him promise to keep tabs on Aranea until she wakes up, and tell him you might be staying in the palace for a while as you wait for Karkat to… get better, you guess. You also ask him to send over a necromancer to see to Kankri, which he promises to do.

When he leaves with Aranea and Vriska, you decide to actually put an outfit that isn’t a nightgown on. It’s kind of feeling itchy after spending two days in it. And you got the hem dirty in the cave!

You think about what Vriska said as you pick out a pretty blue dress from your walk-in wardrobifier. You don’t feel what she feels towards Karkat. You feel bad, sure, but you don’t want to fuck him because you feel bad. You don’t want him to remain in a state like that for your own selfish reasons. You actively want him to get better!

So what are you feeling towards him?

You slip off your jammies and undies and put on some nice bloomers and an undershirt. Things seem a little brighter, for some reason, and that makes your simmering emotions a bit easier to sort through.

You feel regret. You feel… what might be pity. But most of all you feel guilt, like this unbearably huge amount of it. Guilt that you didn’t listen to Karkat, that you didn’t succeed at what you specifically set out to do. He told you it was worth it, but you don’t believe that. You can’t believe that. Even if it was his choice.

But maybe that stuff isn’t the troll kind of pity? It might not be pity at all, it might just be you getting empathy and guilt mixed up into a really confusing cocktail. Although there’s definitely a way to find out! You’ll have to be sneaky about it though, since it’ll be kind of weird you’re writing a letter to her.

You finish pulling the dress over your head, then make your way to your desk and pull a pen and parchment out of a cubby. You dip the nib in a pretty green vial, and begin to write.

“< _Hi Terezi!_

_Okay, honestly, I have kind of a weird question and you really don’t have to answer if it makes you uncomfortable! It’s just that Karkat and I are going through some stuff right now and…_

_Why did you pity Karkat? You were matesprits twice, right? Why?_

_Thank you!_

_Jade_

_PS: Karkat said he could pick a lock with his dick? Why did you teach him that?_ >”

*********

You spend the next few days waiting around for a response, testing how far your teleportation abilities go (250 miles! Wow!), figuring out where Halley went (he somehow got back to Porkmor-Kahn on his own?), and attempting to ease your guilt by thinking up prosthetic designs for Karkat.

Well, you would have done it anyway even if you didn’t feel crushing guilt, so it’s kind of like two birds with one stone. It’s an interesting problem! How to efficiently distribute weight as well as effectively replace complex joints. You know Karkat would rather have a realistic leg than one that looks kind of funky, but you’re going to start with something usable over something aesthetically similar to what everybody else has. You’re thinking of basing it on the tried-and-true ‘peg leg’ design, although perhaps with a bit of give in it for his athletic activities… He’s going to have to be willing to help you test it out to fit him.

Your thoughts are interrupted by a mail-carrier owl zooming through your window, dropping off what looks like a package, and flying back out. Gosh, those things are intrusive.

On closer inspection, you actually received _two_ letters, although one of them is more like a manuscript. Really? Kankri sent you a letter? Ugh, and you have to read _all_ of the words now, because what if necromancer #2 wants to take over the world again? You pull out your Alternian dictionary, because this is going to be a long one…

“< _Dear Jade Harley,_

 _First off, I would like to start off by posing a question to the Heir which I would respectfully request you relay to him: Why would you procure another Serket for my soul trappings? I am sure I am jumping to many problematic conclusions by assuming the same behavior for her as her broodmate, but I am not completely innocent. Innocence being a so-called virtue which I find problematic due to-_ >”

You facepalm, because why in the world would John send _Vriska_ to command this unbelievable powerhouse? Reading through the letter provides a different picture: it looks like she’s happy using him to make snacks for her in the monastery kitchen and making him do silly things when he makes her mad. Apparently because ‘she’s got the empire in the palm of her hand anyway.’ Okay then.

The rest of the letter is all garbage, except for the last paragraph.

“< _I visited Karkat, due to the socially acceptable niceties one must adhere to in serious injury, but he did not want to see me. In fact, he attempted to snap my wrist in two during my speech on how he should not feel pressured to be an example for the disabled and underprivileged populace. He also attempted to snap Vriska’s wrist when she called him a ‘stallion,’ and far be it from me to critique nickname choices, but I do not see the association with my broodmate and the equestrian species._

_He asked about you, and talked of your eyes. I believe he’s depressed. Which is to be expected after such trauma, but he implied the feelings to not be limited to the injury._

_Kankri Vantas_ >”

Talked of your eyes? Oh, Karkat…

You open up the letter from Terezi.

“< _Jade,_

_Your question tasted like limes and delicious anguish! Fill me in on the juicy gossip soon, pretty please._

_Answer as follows: Ever since he crawled his way out of the brooding caverns, Mr. Crabapple has fully mastered the technique of ‘method acting.’ He truly, honestly believes he is the most useless creature on the face of this planet. I thought it was a cute and sad little play he put on during the first round of pitying, but it got old. The second time, I shamefully believed that very same performance when I should have known better._

_Karkat Vantas has never been useless. He is not worthy of my pity! And not worthy of yours either, human. >:]_

_Kisses!  
Terezi_

_PS: He’s also into power swapping, trying to pail you when all you want to do is go to bed, forcing him to shut up for once in his precious little life, and weird voyeurism stuff. Have fun!_ >”

You think that last part is just Terezi messing with you. What in the world is < _power swapping_ >? Like a ‘who’s bottoming today’ sort of thing? A quadrant thing? The whole list is kind of weird so you think it’s a joke, but you memorize it anyway, just in case.

As for the rest of the letter, this confirmed what you suspected: You don’t pity Karkat. You don’t think Karkat’s worthless, and you definitely don’t like how he believes it too. Karkat was wrong about what you felt.

You don’t really blame him, because you didn’t know what you felt either. But now you know your feelings! You’re sad and ashamed and guilty and deeply, deeply enamored with Karkat Vantas. And now you’re going to tell him and then you’re going to spend your time helping him get better and heal your hearts and put this silly stuff behind you.

Although there is one little, tiny problem with that plan… Karkat might not believe you. No, you’re positive he won’t believe you. Karkat is so entrenched in this idea that he’s pity-bait and he’s not going to dig himself out of that anytime soon. He can’t accept you as an outlier to the behavior he’s seen before, because no matter how much he trusts you, he’s going to have that silly fear your feelings aren’t genuine and you’ll break his heart. If you’re going to push this on him early, go see him when he’s not ready so you can make amends, you’re going to need something _good._ Really good.

No sense in thinking about it alone for a few days… Maybe… one more letter?

*********

“hi rose!!!!!!

okay so long story short (i promise ill tell you soon but i gotta keep the letter weight down so it goes super fast) a lot of stuff happened and karkat and i started dating… kind of… kinda dating??? we didnt really define it…… anyway i kind of orchestrated a huge series of events that led to me indirectly chopping karkats leg off which i feel super bad about :((((( but now he wont let me see him not because hes mad at me but because he thinks i pity him! and hes got a complex about being in a matespritship so i dont blame him and i absolutely dont want that either! you know things about quadrants and i trust your advice so do you have any suggestions about how i can get karkat to believe me when i tell him i dont pity him?

thanks bffsie :)  
jade <3”

*********

Five days and a few conversations about it with John later (”Just slap him in the face and call him your bitch and he’ll be all over you!” “No! What!?”) you get a response.

Well, actually, you get a response and a letter from Kanaya. You open Rose’s letter first.

“Dear Jade,

What? I mean this. Here, let me add an exclamation point. What!? What improbable series of events could have possibly transpired to: One. Lead you into a romantic relationship with someone who I always assumed was a poor man’s kismesis if anything, and Two. Chop off his leg. You are telling me everything as soon as you are able, or I might just faint with the lack of gossip.

As far as how to prevent a vacillation from “kinda dating” to matesprits, why not take steps and define a relationship with him? There will be no room for misinterpretation then. If you lay down the boundaries by identifying as ‘boyfriend’ and ‘girlfriend,’ he will know you will not pity him. Besides, isn’t he a huge proponent of labels?

Wow, imagining you and him tenderly touching lips is the most… incredible experience.

That was sarcasm.

Love,  
Rose

PS. Apologies, Dave snatched your letter from me and wanted me to include this:”

You flip the page over, and find that Dave wrote the string “hahahahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHA” in various shapes and sizes at least a few hundred times all over it. Well, at least Rose’s letter provided something meaningful. Define your relationship? Yeah, you guess if you had a label with some well-set, time-tested boundaries, it’d be way harder for Karkat to mentally box you into a one-sided matespritship. But you already tried defining something, and you can’t say you’re very good at thinking up titles for your significant other… Bleh, sorry Rose, but that will have to go on the backburner.

You open up Kanaya’s letter. Two sheets of paper fall out.

“< _Dear Jade,_

_When you receive this letter, I will be in Radnassus for a conference on traditional burial arts (my cerebellum-through-nostril removal skills are dangerously out of shape). I have asked Kankri to check on Karkat once per afternoon in my absence, although I’m sure he won’t need anything as he is getting around just fine. I would implore you to stop by anyway, since all he does is talk about you and while you are very nice it is getting quite tiring._

_And if you do intend to visit, might I remind you not to put Karkat through strenuous activities. Let me repeat that: No strenuous activities. Especially not on my couches._

_Sincerely,  
Kanaya Maryam_ >”

Well, that’s good to know. You’re glad she sent you a letter! You pick up the other sheet that fell out of the envelope. Your heart flutters when you see who it’s from.

“HEY,

I’M APPARENTLY OINKBEAST BACKING ON THE TAIL END OF WHATEVER KANAYA SENT, BECAUSE WHAT DO I LOOK LIKE? SOME KIND OF POSTAGE MAGNATE? NO. HOPEFULLY SHE WASN’T DECRYING MY PERSON-HOOD AND YOU WON’T BURN THIS LETTER OVER HOW MUCH YOU SUDDENLY DESPISE ME.

ANYWAY I ACTUALLY HAD THE ABILITY TO PICK UP AN INK BLOTTER AND WRITE YOU A FEW DAYS AGO, BUT I WAS TOO MUCH OF A DAISY LICKING BONE BULGE TO ACTUALLY GO THROUGH WITH IT. I KNOW I’VE GOT NO RIGHT TO DO THIS, AND I DON’T EXPECT YOU TO EVER BELIEVE ME, BUT I WANTED TO SAY: SORRY FOR LASHING OUT AT YOU. PAST-ME WASN’T IN THE RIGHT PLACE OF THINKSPACE. YOU DESERVE BETTER THAN THAT, MUCH BETTER, AND YOU’D BE A FUCKING FOOL IF YOU DIDN’T TAKE THIS GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY TO MOVE ON.

I STILL MEAN WHAT I SAID. I DON’T WANT YOU TO SEE ME LIKE THIS. I’D RATHER BE NOTHING TO YOU THAN BE YOUR MATESPRIT. BUT ON THE OFF CHANCE YOU DON’T SPLIT LIKE A YELLOW-SKINNED PHALLUS FRUIT, I’LL WRITE TO YOU EVERY DAY UNTIL YOU TELL ME TO STOP. BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT THEY DO IN ALL THE FINE WORKS OF FORLORN LONG DISTANCE ROMANCES WHICH I HOLD AS THE HOLY TEXT FOR THIS SCENARIO WE’RE STUCK IN. WELL, WAIT, I LIED, I WON’T WRITE EVERY DAY, JUST WHEN KANAYA IS THERE TO WORK THE POSTAL HOOTBEASTS BUT THAT’S LESS PRECISE. SHIT. I WROTE IT ANYWAY.”

You flip the page over, but the entire thing is meticulously covered in black ink. In slightly smaller handwriting, it ends with:

“STAY WELL.

KARKAT”

You can't help but smile at how silly he is. But while you loved the letter and appreciated the apology, you really want to know what the heck is under that layer of ink. He really wanted to hide something! Like, he must have spent a half hour perfectly coloring over it so it looked like a big black box. Thankfully, there’s a way to find out what's under it! You guess Karkat forgot that magic was a thing.

You think of the spell for clarity, flutter your fingers over the page, and concentrate on the block. It melts away, leaving behind only his letters. Awesome.

“THIS IS A TANGENT AND I REALLY SHOULDN’T BE WRITING THIS TO YOU. BUT I. UGH. YOU PROBABLY KNOW HOW I FEEL ABOUT YOU, BUT, HECK, WHY NOT SLAP IT DOWN IN INK AND MAKE THIS DOCUMENT AN OFFICIAL SOURCE OF SHAMEGLOBE FLUIDS? I WANT TO PROTECT YOU. I WANT TO HOLD YOU IN MY ARMS AND FIGHT OFF YOUR ENEMIES, BOTH PHYSICAL AND IN YOUR OWN THINKPAN, IN SOME KIND OF EPIC ACTION-PACKED GRAND STAND. THAT ALMOST SOUNDS LIKE PITY, RIGHT? IT’S SO FUCKING CLOSE, EXCEPT I WANT YOU TO DO THE SAME TO ME. I WANT YOU TO CARRY ME LIKE A SWOONING BUXOM PRINCE AS YOU HELP ME FIGHT MY DEMONS, AND TOGETHER WE WOULD HAVE BEEN SOME KIND OF VEHEMENOUS POWER COUPLE SPITTING FIRE AND STAYING STABLE.

IS THAT LOVE? YOUR INCOMPREHENSIBLE HUMAN EMOTION? MAYBE DEVOTION? RESPECT? AWE? DID YOU FEEL THE SAME TOWARDS ME BEFORE THE ONSLAUGHT OF PITY? WHATEVER FEELING IT IS, I CAN’T BE A PART OF IT ANYMORE, BECAUSE I’M NOT IN A PLACE WHERE I CAN PROTECT YOU. I FEEL LIKE I FUCKED UP SOMEHOW, LIKE YOU SLIPPED SLICK THROUGH MY FINGERS LIKE BLACK SAND. LIKE YOU GOT WEDGED IN MY BLOODPUSHER AND YOU’RE TOO FINE TO DUST OUT. LIKE. I DON’T KNOW.

STAY WELL, MY DEAR— UGH WOW THAT WAS AWFUL I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE A CUTE THING TO SAY BUT LOOKING BACK ON IT I’M. WOW, SHITTING FUDGE FILLED ASSES I CAN’T BELIEVE I JUST WROTE THAT. THAT WAS DISGUSTING, EVEN FOR ME. I CAN’T SEND THIS, THIS IS JUST ME MASTURBATING OVER MY OWN ANGST WHILE YOU WATCH AT THIS POINT.”

You can’t help it, you giggle out loud. Oh, _Karkat_. You want nothing more than to teleport there and hold him close and say ‘yes, yes, I feel the same, I want to be your dependent and protector and everything in-between,’ but that would definitely freak him out. You think you’ve got two options from here on out. You could stay passive and write letters back and forth until he’s ready to see you… Or you could do something _creative_. Something that will make things right.

Karkat’s letter, besides giving you a big ol’ blast of warm fuzzies, also gave you an idea. An excellent idea. An idea that’s so fucking ridiculous and incredible it’s a wonder how you've never thought of it before. It fits into Rose’s idea perfectly, fits into what Terezi would have never done with him, fits into Karkat’s feelings with such precision, and fits with what you want as well. Thinking about what you’ll commit to him with this-

Oh my god, the more you think about it, the bigger the grin on your face grows. You slap your hands over your cheeks, your face growing hot with glee. Oh my god, you’re really going to go through with this, aren’t you? You’re really going to-

How come you’ve never thought of this before? How could you have gone without a label for so long, when there’s one that fits the two of you perfectly? It’s so obvious, so awesome, so destined, and you know Karkat’s going to love it, even though it might take some time to convince him you’re being serious.

Wow, okay, you’re heading there tonight. You’ve got to look super cute! You need something red to wear. Bright red, in Karkat’s color. You’re not sure if you own anything in that shade, but that’s okay if you don’t. It’s just a traditional thing. But it’s something he’d appreciate.

After digging through your wardrobifier, you find you do, in fact, own one bright red outfit. It’s a little sexy— An A-line dress with a low cut scoop neck, too short to wear bloomers with. You slip it on with nothing underneath, the cloth smooth against your skin. Even though you’re basically bouncing on your heels with how excited you are, you take your time to make sure it’s straight, to brush your hair, to boost up your confidence and get yourself feeling good.

You don’t really prepare anything to say to him, you think you’ll just wing it. And with your feelings jumping around your head in giddy beats, you teleport straight to Kanaya’s office.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hate to do this to you guys, but the last chapter will take a while to come out. It's going to be very, very long and have quite a few images I need to spend some more time on. Hang in there, and thanks for sticking with me!


	41. Well, I'm Down If You Are (Enceinte)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This chapter is NSFW, but all pictures are SFW.**
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> (psst, if porn doesn't float your boat, stop reading when Jade takes off her shoes, then ctrl+f/⌘+f for the phrase: “ _< Gross.  >_” whimpers Karkat. )

You flash into existence in the middle of the parlor, standing on top of the low table. It’s super dark, minus some freakishly bright moonlight coming in through the window. Karkat’s not here, and all the lights are off in the nearby areas. You wonder where he’s hanging out?

You walk through the hallways, opening doors and peeking in aimlessly, and he’s nowhere to be found. You return to the parlor after wandering through every dark room in the house, hands on your hips and feeling very displeased. You’re sure you went through everywhere in the house, everywhere except…

Oh, you forgot about the courtyard!

The curtain leading outside is drawn shut over the door, so you didn’t see it when you set out from the parlor. Well, here you are. You push aside the blue fabric and step quietly out into the moonlit garden.

It’s a small space, just a tiny grassy center surrounded by Kanaya’s flowers and plants, with vines and woodwork crawling all up the walls and making everything look charmingly rustic. There’s only one simple, stone bench— a gray rectangular chunk of rock with some cushions on it. Karkat’s laying down on it, a book which he’s diligently flipping through angled up towards the moonlight.

Your heart does like, sixty backflips when you see him. You can do this.

“Hi Karkat,” you say, gently.

“ _< Holy shit!_ >” he screams. He sits up in a rush, fumbling his book and dropping it in the vines with a flutter of pages. He barely catches himself, managing to plant his leg down in the grass before jolting off of the edge of the bench.

Karkat is gorgeous. Karkat is wide-eyed and surprised and gorgeous. Karkat is also very, very well-lit.

He’s sitting in the midst of this perfect, natural spotlight. Bright white light shimmers down from the full moon, forming a soft halo across his pretty black hair. It scatters all down his arms and torso, defining each muscle and fold in his shirt. There’s also a paper lantern on the grass, which casts warm shadows that emphasize every muscle and expression perfectly.

He’s wearing a simple undershirt and cropped slacks, with the extra fabric folded and pinned neatly over the residual limb. His bandages are all gone, and only the bigger gouges remain, a few black scars spanning his arm and face. No mystery fluid is coming out of them, but it looks like they’ll take a while to heal up fully.

His expression changes from one of shock to one of absolute hopelessness as soon as he recognizes you. He doesn’t even give you a look up and down, he just closes his eyes, lets his shoulders fall, and rolls his head forward like his body went limp. Oh no! You knew he’d be upset, but not _this_ kind of upset. This just looks like him giving up on life.

“Oh, goddesses,” he whimpers. “No, no no, please, don’t do this to me, don’t *look* at me, don’t-”

“Karkat, it’s okay,” you say, approaching him as slow and quiet as you can. “I don’t pity you.”

“No, you do. You’re just a complete and absolute idiot who managed to confuse her own feelings in a huge clusterfuck of optimism as she is wont to do. I told you not to come here. I thought you respected that.” He opens his eyes, staring down at the space where his leg used to be. “Go away, Jade, come back when I’m not sick and tired and feeling so wrong I would jump at the opportunity to shed my own skin. I don’t want this. < _I don’t believe you. I won’t believe you. >_ Not now. Not for a long time.”

You approach him from the front, standing between his thighs, but he still doesn’t look up at you. You try to speak as gentle and as patient as you can. “Didn’t you hear me, Karkat? I don’t pity you. I mean it. Let me spend time with you. Let me be with you.”

Karkat’s voice is quiet and roiling, his gestures jolting like he’s going to strangle something. “Look at me, take one fucking gander at me, don’t just stomp in here and not give one shit, actually observe for once in your life, and then give me one reason why I should even begin to believe you.”

You reach out towards his face, the air thick against your skin, and press your hands against his cheeks. You gently guide his head up, and two perfectly red eyes open to look at you. You watch him melt, sigh into your palms, like you forced all the air out of him.

“Goddess, Jade. *My* goddess,” he says, his breath gone. “I can’t… I can’t resist you. You’ve done it. I give up. Do whatever you want with me. Ogle my stump, mock my scars, touch me, pail me red as anything. I’m weak. I can’t fight you, I can’t-”

“Karkat Vantas,” you say. “I will not be your matesprit, because I don’t pity you. I’ve got a better proposition, anyway. Something to fix this.”

Karkat presses his lips together, glances to the side in a way that signifies he’s on the brink of tears. “So propose it then, say this miracle phrase that’s going to magically restore our relationship like nothing ever happened in a swarm of butterflies and flowers.”

“I’m only going to ask once, and I’d like you to look at me for this.” He’s hot up against your palms, and makes a motion like he’s going to pull away. But he thinks better of it, blinking up at you like you’re his executioner.

You look at him, hold him there, his eyes absolutely burning with a flame that’s so unique to Karkat and there is nothing you want to do more than let yourself be consumed by it.

“Karkat Vantas, my friend, my foil, my beloved, it would make me really happy if you… ah… um-”

You stomp down a sudden bout of nervousness, bite your lip, and ask.

“Will you be my knight?”

His eyes widen, his face dramatically cools, and he gives a very unguarded, “What.”

You brush his hair back, tuck it behind his ears. He’s so soft and lovely, and he’ll always listen to you, and there’s no need to be nervous around him. You can see this through.

“I want you to be my protector. Officially. I’d like you to pledge yourself to me in front of all the gods and the people and take up my name and my symbol and fight for me.”

He just stares up at you, his brow furrowing. You keep going.

“Let’s try it again. The knight-witch thing, like we did four years ago. But this time, I’d like it to be permanent, not just for training. It won’t be assigned to us by some silly government. It’ll be our choice. Fight with me. Adventure with me. Quest with me. Forever and ever.”

He looks appalled, his lip curling into a snarl. “No, seriously. What. I am so incapable of taking on the responsibility of being your knight, hell, I was incapable even when I was healthy. Is this a joke?”

You sink to your knees, between his thighs, clutching his hands in a death grip. When you speak, your voice comes out so patient, such a contrast to how tight you want to hold him. “ _< Karkat Vantas, be my knight. Be my knight, and I’ll be your witch, and I’ll never take another for as long as I live.  >_”

Karkat’s got his eyes narrowed, shaking his head back and forth like you suddenly turned into a gross bug. “Do you understand what you’re even saying? This isn’t something you can just toss around to make your asshole friend feel better about himself, this is a serious, traditional pact. It’s not wriggler’s play.”

“I mean it! I’d like you to protect me,” you say, your heart pounding. “I’d like to protect you too. I’d like it if they were our official titles for each other. You know, how we introduce each other at parties.”

Karkat’s breathing becomes audible and harsh, his eyes trying to blink away the view of your face. “Even if you weren’t playing this terrible prank on me, I got kicked out of the Knight coalition sweeps ago, I can’t take any kind of vow with you, can’t-”

“It’s fine! I’ll have John pull a few strings. Or even my mom. It’s not a problem.”

His shoulders rise and fall with each fast breath. He’s genuinely less angry, more shocked, trying to figure out why you’re saying this to him. You squeeze his hand tighter. “This is ridiculous. Jade, I can’t- I’m not even *mobile* for goddesses sake, you would always be protecting me, it wouldn’t be mutual, it wouldn’t be a balanced partnership, it wouldn’t-”

You run your thumb along his knuckles, feeling each little divot of calloused skin. “Yeah right, you learned to walk and fight with a cane, why not a prosthetic? I’ll even make you one! One that fits you and works right. And in the meantime, you can get around on crutches. And even if you can’t you could probably protect me just by insulting my attacker from across the room. And even if you mess that up somehow, it’s not like physical protection is the only tenant of the bonding! _Agape_ is mentioned in those weirdo knighting vows for a reason.”

He still doesn’t believe you, doesn’t _want_ to believe you. That’s got to change.

“I really, really mean this, Karkat. I want to be with you for a long time and I want to adventure with you for many more years and… I… You’re so important to me, you make me…” What does he make you? Happy? Whole? Into a puddle of gooey melted chocolate? Well, yeah, but- “You make me light up. You bring out the best and worst in me and that’s… that’s a feat, Karkat! That’s something not a lot of people can do. Not- not anybody, really. I mean that. You make me light up just like the moon and stars in the sky.”

You take a deep breath, smile, and look directly into his eyes. “I need you.”

You watch his mask crumble around him in one fell swoop.

Karkat looks at you, really looks at you, before his shoulders stoop, his chest expands with a harsh breath of air, and he begins to sob.

Not huge sobs or anything, just these big, slightly messy tears originating from somewhere raw and holy that roll down his cheeks and flit into the scars in his skin. You want to reach up and wipe it all away, but he’s got your hands held so tightly. You give him what you hope is a smile that can convey what you want to do.

“No, no, not like this,” Karkat sniffs, squinting his eyes shut. “No, you can’t propose to me like this. This isn’t how I imagined it going, it’s not right, it’s not- You’re serious, _< oh gods you’re totally fucking serious_ , > you want to do this, you have that much faith in me, even now. < _Even *fucking* now, Jade, as I look the epitome of pity- >_ Gods, you’re- _< You’re an absolute-_ > You *need* me- No, you have to be lying, you don’t, you never-”

He’s keeping your hand in a death grip, but you truck on. “I, um, I was thinking we could go on a few adventures before we make it official? You know, before we take those bonding vows. After you recover, let’s go on some practice quests! Just you and me.”

Transparent red splotches fall down to your hands and stain them a bit. He uses his free hand to fan himself while sobbing, like he caught a case of the vapors or something.

“Oh my gods, oh my gods, < _that’s why you’re in my hemoshade_ , > I thought you were just being a total pisssnatch freak, but this is pre-meditated, you actually thought this through, you actually mean it, I should have worn green < _fuck *me,* I fucked this proposal up even more than you already did_ , > how-”

“Mom’s going to be so angry I chose you as my knight though. But I think I convince her since it doesn’t have anything to do with bloodlines and alliances and stuff.”

He’s quivering, or is that you? “Jade, oh god, Jade, don’t mess up your life by getting bound to me, I’m not worth-”

“Oh, and when we decide to have a big ceremony and make it official, it’s totally going to be at the palace. And it’s going to be a million times better than Mituna and Latula’s was, because we’re way more awesome. And I might not even mind taking those weirdo permanent vows we both made fun of when we were in training, because I’ll be taking them with you.”

Karkat can’t help himself: he starts to smile as tears slip down his cheeks. That makes you giddy in a whole lot of ways. “Jade, fuck-”

“And then we’ll be together forever, Karkat, just like your silly novels! Partners in crime, thick as thieves, unstoppable adventurers! You’ll wear my symbol, and I’ll wear yours, and it won’t just be for training anymore. I don’t know about you, but that makes me really happy to think about. We’re totally getting matching outfits, too.”

“Oh my *god,*” says Karkat, trying to cover up his slowly growing grin. “Matching outfits are so lame, fuck-”

“And my ceremonial dress when we take our vows is going to be so pretty! I’ll be in your colors, and when the time comes when I’m supposed to kiss your hand and you’re supposed to kiss mine, I’m going to smooch you on the lips instead. I’ll even dip you. And everybody will know we’re going to make love in our pretty outfits later.”

Karkat’s got his hand plastered over his eyes in disbelief, a big, goofy grin spread across his tear stained face.

“You were right, Karkat. You were totally right about our labels even though I thought it was silly how you wouldn’t call me your girlfriend. But I get it now, we’re more than that. We’re somewhere between moirails and straight up super sexy eros love, you’re kind of my protector and kind of my dependent, and I would honestly rip apart the continent itself if someone harmed a hair on your head. I think that a knight-witch relationship is really going to work out for us this time. Let’s try again. Let’s try it now that we’re not nineteen and stupid, now that we’ve grown into ourselves. Let’s do it again.

“So, what do you say?” you take a breath to giggle. You kind of feel like floating off into the sky as you watch Karkat come unraveled in sheer emotion. “That was a pretty long rant, but I mean it all! Let’s mess around for a few years, take a break for a big ceremony to make it official, and then mess around professionally until we get old and our resurrection pool is all used up. Sound like a plan?”

Karkat very carefully lowers his hand from his eyes, and the look he gives you makes your heart want to rise and rise until it bursts from your mouth in an epic climax of beating. He’s smiling— raw, unguarded, not a single hint of that fake anger showing in his expression, just a sloppy sort of relief that makes you want to hug him so tight you merge together like over-attached amoebas.

“Jade,” he begins, and he’s slow, like he’s having a hard time thinking up the words. “I- < _Yes. > _Jade, yeah, _< This is- This is the worst proposal ever. I never thought I’d be asked to be a knight like this, but… This is *us,*isn’t it? This is what we’re going to be. I will be *yours,* for fucking ever, no matter what. If you call for me I will come and nothing will stop me, not my legs nor my self-hate nor whatever assholes stand in my way, because I will be your knight. I will protect you until Death claims us, and I know you’ll do the same for me._ > You have already carved your name into my bloodpusher, so we might as well go the whole damn way. Dig deep, fuckass, because this shit is permanent.”

You actually, literally _whimper_ when he says that. It’s like your insides released all the emotional tension you were keeping locked up in an awesome burst of feelings. Karkat’s still smiling, not at all phased by your silly noise.

“Be my witch, Jade. It would send me into an illegal state of happiness if that’s how I could introduce you at parties from now on.”

You’d laugh at that, if you weren’t so relieved that he agreed to be your knight.

Now that, that’s a fucking title. That’s a commitment to something. That’s got standards you can both conform to.

You feel comfortably trapped in his gaze, and you don’t think you’ll be returning to functioning level anytime soon. Thankfully, Karkat appears to still possess the ability of speech. He breaks your grip and spreads his arms out towards you. “Come here, my witch. If I don’t feel your weight against me very soon I will explode into a pile of repressed rage and shameglobe fluid. I will throw a legendary tantrum, the likes of which mere mortals have not seen. You do not want to see it.”

You don’t need to be asked twice. You stand up, heart pumping away, and eye his lap. “Um, Karkat, won’t it hurt if…”

He pats the space between his spread thighs. “It’s fine, just plant your attractive butt on the cushion.”

You sit down sidesaddle over his unwounded side, then carefully shift so you splay your legs around his hips. He helps you by wrapping his arms around your waist, holding you close so you can circle your legs around him. You cross them behind his back a little bit, to keep stable.

You feel warm and light and happy and good, and you know he does too. You bring your hands up to his face, wipe away the remaining tears, and trace your thumb gently along his scars. He’s beautiful, his eyes like these really deep red pools you want to go swimming in for hours and hours, and his smile so sincere and wonderful and big. You open your mouth to say that, but he gets there first.

“You’re beautiful,” he says, earnestly. Aww! “And your globespheres are like, shit, I don’t know, something deep and awesome and probably cliche. And you’ve got this gorgeous- I mean, ridiculous grin on your face, you look like I just knocked you upside the thinkpan.”

“Do I?” you giggle, tracing fingers down his sharp jawline. “Well, if I look ridiculous, then so do you! You look like a really happy drunk.”

“Fuck,” says Karkat, grinning wider. “That’s certainly unacceptable. I wont have a single one of your vacuous viewglobes tracking this expression of mine!”

In one very swift, battle-trained motion, Karkat yanks your glasses of your nose.

Everything is all gray and blobby now! What’d he do that for? “Oh no, Karkat, that’s no fun, I wanted to see-”

Actually, you take that back. It’s probably a good thing he stole your glasses.

They would have fallen off anyway.

You feel him smile against your lips. You pull him deeper.

There is nothing, absolutely nothing in this whole world that can compare with how Karkat kisses you.

He’s _perfect_. You feel whole, full, like you just had an excellent cup of tea, like you’ve been lying out in the sun, like you’re swimming through warm ocean water. Kissing Karkat Vantas is so pleasing in every possible way and your only regret is that this didn’t happen sooner.

He’s passionate and gentle, squeezing you tight with one arm as his other hand slides behind your head to pull you in. You run your hands across his cheeks, through his hair, around his horns, down his back, trying to touch and absorb as much of him as you possibly can while you have the most fated makeout session in all of history.

 _Awesome_.

“Jade,” he eventually whispers, between soft kisses. “< _My moon and stars_ , > I would- I’d- Fuck, I- _< Can I touch you?  >_”

“< _Yes_ , >” you murmur, not wanting to break apart. “Please.”

He slides his hand down your neck, brushing along your shoulder blades, down and across your back, feeling every dip and curve of your body. He trails his fingers along your waist, up your ribs, to your breasts. He does this rubbing thing with his thumb there, like he’s curious, and the thin fabric creates warm friction against you and _oh_ that’s nice-

“ _Nngh-_ Karkat-” you whimper against his lips.

He pulls away with a sputter. “Oh, fuck, sorry, I forgot those were erogenous, I thought they were like horns or something, ha ha, what an idiot I am, ruined that moment, didn’t even- Wait. Actually…”

He pauses then, searching your face for something. He must see whatever he’s looking for, because the corners of his mouth turn up in an unapologetic smile. He plants his hand firmly on your boob and asks with that totally subtle charm unique to him, “Want to have human sex with me?”

You blink at him, your head woozy from the sudden break in the kissing and trying to focus with your blurry vision. “Um… Well, duh, but are you sure you’re up for that? Kanaya said no strenuous activity, and I’m pretty sure bumping and grinding counts as strenuous.”

Karkat rotates to kiss your cheek very softly. Eeeeeee. “Who says it has to be strenuous? I can be patient. In fact, I am going to pail you so slowly and sweetly you won’t know the meaning of the word ‘patience’ until I’m done with you.”

An image of you and Karkat pops into your head, of you making slow love to him in the moonlight when you lay down together, of him planting kisses up your chest and neck as he makes you feel _good_ -

“Oh-” you stammer out. “Oh- oh gosh, I… Oh.”

“Ha.” says Karkat, loudly. “I can’t believe I actually flustered you. You! Holy shit, how the tables have turned, how the tables have fucking turned.”

“Shut up! That was just… really nice to think about! And as unbelievably amazing as that would be right now, I still don’t want to hurt you. Not even a little bit.”

“Jade Harley,” he says. He pops your glasses back on your nose, and he’s looking you dead in the eye, his grin big and bright. “I swear to you on every damn mythical creature, god, and person we ran into on this stupid adventure that if you don’t take me in your arms and consummate our impending relationship *right now,* I will lose my fucking mind. I have so many feelings I need to express and I don’t know what half of them are, but I sure as hell need to show them to you with some undulating, some tongue, and a whole lot of gentle rubbing. I need you long and I need you hard and I need you immediately, and after all that I think you can trust me that *I will tell you if I want you to stop.*”

Oh my god.

Oh my _god_.

“Oh my god,” you say. “Oh my god, Karkat, we are going to have sex right now. Right now. I am taking off my clothing.”

You scramble backwards, off his lap, and manage to hop onto your feet in front of him.

Karkat, for some reason, does not look very enthused about this new development. He clutches the edges of the bench in a panic. “I hate to be the one to break this law of romance to you, but you can’t just throw off all your cotton garments and expect things to happen!”

“Of course I can!” You start kicking off your flats, you can’t fuck with your shoes on. “Look how hot I am! It’s a sexy striptease!”

You manage to get one off that way, but the other is being stubborn. You hop on one foot while pulling off your remaining shoe, lose your balance, and promptly fall on your ass in the middle of the grassy space.

“Okay, bad idea,” you giggle, propping yourself up on your arms. “I guess I’m not a pro at sexy stripteases yet, I mean…”

You trail off, because Karkat’s eyes are now focused square on your crotch, a strong blush working its way across his cheeks. Oh, right. No underwear + short dress + spread legs towards your lover = Probably A Pretty Good View. He licks his bottom lip while checking said view out, quite deliberately, and wow, ha ha, _woof_.

“Did you…” he says, very quietly, like he’s afraid of setting some kind of alarm off. “… come here without…”

“Undies? Yeah! The dress is too short to wear with bloomers, and, uh…”

Karkat edges himself off the bench, landing so he’s on his knee, then leans forward in a way so he can crawl on top of you. Which he does kind of awkwardly so he doesn’t have to put weight on his residual limb, but he manages to make it to your face. He’s blushing, already beginning to smell faintly of pheromones, and when he kisses you he almost tastes like the lovely cinnamon-y spicy musk he gives off. You’re positive his hormones don’t affect humans, but there’s a burst of warmth between your legs and you suddenly doubt everything science has told you.

He presses his weight down, the slight bump in his pants grinding against you, and you feel very warm and tingly and oh fuck yeah, this is happening. This is a thing that is finally happening. The time has now come. The hour of reckoning has drawn near. It’s judgment day.

The day you finally fuck Karkat Vantas. You’re marking this one on the calendar.

“I am going to get grass-” growls Karkat, into your lips, while casually dry humping you, “-between the folds of my nook, and I don’t even care. I am going to roll around with you in the garden and make you come two hundred times in a row because that’s what you deserve.”

“That’s the hottest thing ever.”

You’re not even lying.

You continue the makeouts as he gently rolls his hips against yours. You’ve never felt a bulge coming out from beginning to end, and you gotta say it’s pretty nice. He’s kind of at an angle in order to keep his weight on his good side, but you can feel most of the unsheathing motions against your labia, rubbing and pushing and wiggling against some choice parts of you. It’s kind of great thinking about how that’s going to be inside you.

You can’t help but moan as he presses down hard, just once, before he pulls back with a grin. “As much as I love squeezing all those adorable noises out of you, I am seriously in pain being on top. I’m getting off this ride before I explode in a petulant sack of orgasm. Guess you’ll have to show your dominant side tonight.”

He rolls off of you and you giggle, immediately climbing on top of him. You straddle his hips, leaning down to press kisses all up and down his neck. “I was going to do that anyway, silly. I was just letting you have your way before I totally blew your mind!”

“Looking forward to it.”

Karkat seems more in control than you thought he’d be. You bet it’s got something to do with the deadened nerve thing he’s got going on: grinding against you probably felt more like a massage as opposed to getting himself all hot and bothered. Not fair! You’re going to have to get even.

You sit up on your knees, placing some of your weight on his bulge. He bites his lip and watches as you pull off your dress.

His pupils dilate when he looks you up and down.

“Oh- oh fuck, Jade, I can’t believe you’re allowing me to touch you, to-” He slides his hands up your bare waist, completely starstruck. “< _I must be dreaming_ , > you’re a work of goddamn *art,* moon and stars, there is no body of work on this pitiful mortal plane that can compare to you.”

That makes you feel all light and floaty. “Oh, I don’t know about that, I haven’t gotten a good look at you! Shirt. Off.”

He does a curl up sort of thing underneath you, and you help tug his shirt off. He lies back down, all scars and muscles and bone, and yeah, Karkat’s comparison was totally wrong. _This_ is a work of art.

You lick your lips as you trace your hands down his smooth chest and abdomen, taking detours when a scar guides you in a different direction. Karkat closes his eyes and whimpers as you decrease the pressure, lightly brushing the tips of your fingers against his ribs. He arches his back towards you, all beautiful taught skin and curves, as you finish your trip on the edges of his pelvic bones.

His bulge squirms against you, and a pulse from between your legs reminds you that there is sex to be had! You roll off him, kinda spooning him from the side, kiss him, and slip your fingers underneath his belt.

Karkat is apparently not wearing very form-fitting pants because you easily slide down against his skin. You ignore the tip of his bulge curiously flicking against your hand, and go straight to grabbing the base. Which feels-

Feels like-

Oh _goddesses_. You pull away from the kiss.

Karkat’s tentacle-y troll cock is literally the most incredible thing you have ever touched. To you, troll dicks have always felt like someone filled a sock with grape jelly and were trying to smack you with it, but Karkat’s? Karkat’s cock feels like how you always dreamed bulges would feel, how you would imagine them after staying up late reading bad erotica, how you always thought they would be like until Feferi crushed your fantasies at age 15.

Karkat’s bulge could make pornography artists weep at its beauty. Karkat’s bulge could arm wrestle you and win. If Karkat was a prostitute, he would be the king of all the whores in the sex nobility. If Karkat was a prostitute, you would buy him every day.

And when you run your hand along his length, you realize that he not only has a bulge that could seduce the gods themselves, he’s also hung like a fucking neighbeast.

And that’s going to go inside you.

“Something wrong?” asks Karkat, staring dreamily at you.

You feel your cheeks heating up, and you’re not sure how to respond. Karkat quirks an eyebrow, blinks a few times, then his face breaks into a smile. “What? Too much for you? Ha! Looks like I’ve won this round, Jade. My bulge and I have overtaken your sexual experience in these erotic olympics, and I would totally high five it if I had the opportunity.”

You really want to snark back, but can’t find the words. You never expected this. Your pussy is _throbbing_.

“Karkat I need you inside me right now or I will die.”

“Wow,” says Karkat, who is much, much calmer than you. “Uh, shouldn’t we mess around more first? I mean, I’m down if you are, but-”

“Right now,” you hiss. “Right now.”

“Okay! Okay, jeez, get on me.”

You sit up, and as much as you want to yank off his pants really fast, that would probably not be very safe. You fumble at the buttons on his fly as Karkat starts to laugh.

“D-don’t make fun of me,” you stammer, getting one undone. Gosh, your fingers just aren’t responding right! “I-I- how. How.”

“A. Contrary to degrading horn stereotypes, I’m naturally gifted, and B. I told you, I need a ridiculous amount of muscle and motor control to get off, okay? Motor control which I apparently snatched straight from your pretty frond nubs. Here, love, let me.”

Karkat shoos your hands away, then unbuttons his pants with a smug little smile on his face. You stick your tongue out at him as you help pull them off, being really careful around his residual limb. You throw them somewhere behind you, your attention captured by Karkat’s friggin’ baller genitalia.

Ooooooohhhh gosh, it’s thick and hard and self-lubricating. You run your fingers up from the base, watching Karkat’s eyes roll back in bliss as he lets you stroke it. He keeps it pretty still, in order to not accidentally increase the pressure your fingertips are putting on it, and judging by the way he’s biting his lip it looks like it takes a huge amount of effort. Karkat really does have a lot of control! Most of the bulges you’ve seen just kind of wiggle and seek out stimulation with no input from from the troll.

It doesn’t take too long before your gentle rubbing sends Karkat straight into pheromone-ville, his scent of arousal absolutely intoxicating. His chest is heaving, his pupils dilated, his hand on your thigh clenching and unclenching. He shudders, opens his mouth, and says with a voice dripping with longing, “Jade, let’s… what do you want me to do?”

“Keep it flexed, don’t wiggle around too much just yet.” You can’t wait until you get to the prehensile feature, but you had better take it slow at first. You shift again so you’re straddling him, Karkat grabbing your thighs, angling yourself so the tip of his bulge presses nicely against your entrance. “Ready?”

Karkat gives you a smile and a nod. You lower yourself down, gently, holding the base still against Karkat’s quivering body. The tip goes in smooth and slick, like it was custom fit for you. Karkat grips your thighs and exhales loudly.

“Are you doing okay?” you close your eyes, focusing on getting him as far in as you can without hurting him.

“I… yeah, fuck yeah. It’s good. Kinda pulls on my hip but whatever.”

You pause at that. “Um, should we stop? I don’t want to fuck you to death.”

He grins. “That would be a fun activity to explain to Death. ‘HOW DID YOU DIE? Oh, just getting my world rocked by my lovely witch-to-be. Worth it.’” His eyes flick downward, and he begins to trace his hands up and down your thighs. “It doesn’t hurt that bad, and anyway, I just want to be here, you know? Like… like this. It feels… really fucking good inside you so far. Gods, I can’t believe entering you is a thing, I take back every negative word I’ve said about humanity, this is fantastic.”

You smile, and close your eyes again. You press down carefully, the width of his bulge getting thicker, and you don’t stop your slow slide until you feel a bit uncomfortable with how much of him is inside you. You’re not against his pelvis, a few inches of his bulge unable to fit, but it still feels nice and warm. It’s definitely not as poignant as having a ROCK HARD COCK or something similar in you, but it’s nicer in a different way. An emotional attachment sort of way.

You run your hands through his hair, and he’s smiling up at you with a look of such adoration you feel like your heart is going to burst. “This is as far in as you can go, Karkat. Feel okay?”

“’Okay’ is putting it lightly. ‘Okay’ doesn’t even begin to describe it, doesn’t even begin to scratch the pathetic surface of emotion currently pulsing through my bulge. I can feel you on every side of me and the pressure is thinkpan blowing.”

You lean forward, hugging your body against his chest, kissing him as he wraps his arms around your back, feeling skin-on-skin and your clit pressing against his pelvis and his bulge slick and warm inside you. _Fuck_ , you feel good, you feel incredible, you can’t believe you waited this long to have sex with Karkat. It was a long goddamn road and here you are!

You tentatively snake your hips up and back down over his bulge, the basic ‘having sex’ motion, and _oh_ that feels nice, hitting you in that sensitive spot right in the front, but you stop when Karkat winces.

“Shit, ow, don’t *do* that.”

Oh, boo. You can’t help but feel a little disappointed. You knew it was all too good to be true. “I’m sorry, Karkat! What I just did is how humans usually have sex. I don’t have to move if it’s too painful.”

He pauses to tuck a strand of your hair behind your ear. “I think it will be fine when my stump isn’t like, raw and tenderized, but that hurts like hell right now. When you slid up it pulled on that shitty muscle on my thigh I can’t remember the name of because all my blood is pumping straight to my junk at the moment. Going back down was fine. Pleasant, even. Let’s fuck around a bit, see what works.”

You try a few different undulating motions, but they either hurt Karkat or neither of you feel much, and Karkat tries moving his bulge around a little but he can’t get a lot of leverage without pain setting in. Well, that’s what you get for going at it when one party is severely injured, you guess. You sit up straight, straddling him, examining him for possible clues on how to continue with the full sex tonight.

But when you do that, you feel something _amazing_. The part of Karkat’s bulge unable to fit inside you rubs flush against your clit, and you feel warm and tight and _nnnngh_ -

“Nnnngh,” you inform him. You rub yourself against his bulge again, just a small forward-back thrust, and oh yes, there it is, the thing that can definitely drive you to orgasm. “Does that feel good for you too?”

He shrugs against the grass, face still a dreamy smile. “Don’t feel much except your wonderful pressure. But go right ahead, I want to watch you get off. On me. Badly.”

“But it’s no fun if-”

“Jade it is going to take me probably least another forty five long, tight, wet, sweaty minutes, and you deserve at least two orgasms, if not two hundred. Go at it, I’ll love watching you come apart more than anything.”

“Okay, fine. But you’ve got to keep me entertained since I can’t kiss you up here! Hmm… Tell me a story. A sexy story. Tell me something you fantasized doing with me.”

You’ve got a feeling that working Karkat up about sex is the secret to getting him in an orgasm sort of mindset. And what’s the easiest way to get Karkat worked up about something? Have him start ranting! You push his hands down into the grass, lacing your fingers together as you press your weight on his warm palms.

“Alright,” says Karkat, growling a bit. “I’ll play your little game, slowly getting me to worm out my deepest darkest desires through the use of storytelling. Joke’s on you, though, because I am going to drive you through a fucking legendary climax using only a vanilla scenario I spent a lot of time dreaming about on the road.”

The joke is, in fact, on him, because Terezi already sent you a nice list of his desires, but you’re not going to tell him that right now. You start grinding yourself against his bulge, slow enough to stop it from hurting on his end, but large enough motions to get him slipping in and out of you just a tiny bit. It might take a little while for you to rock yourself into full on climax like this, but you get a story to help you along!

“Awesome,” you say, your breaths already a bit uneven. “What’s it about?”

“I imagined you’d have trouble sleeping, and-”

You can’t stop yourself from participating. “And you’d sneak into my bedroll, climb on top of me, and just spill slurry all over my naked, sweaty body!”

“What the actual fuck? That’s terrible, I would not jack off on you when you were sleeping. You are hearby perma-banned from contributing to my fantasies.”

You giggle, the offended, blushing look on his face just too funny, and let him continue as you grind against him.

“So, I fantasized you’d have trouble sleeping, maybe somewhere in the plains, and you’d be tired and desperate and ask me to help you fall asleep. So I’d get under the blankets, lie next to you, and press my weight against you. Probably with the intent to read to you or some shit. Oh, and you wouldn’t be wearing your underwear for some ungodly reason, don’t question the ridiculous mechanics of my fantasy.”

“I dunno, it’s possible, sometimes I didn’t feel like wearing bloomers!”

Karkat pauses to give your hands a playful squeeze. “Anyway, I’d notice your casual nudity. I’d feel your nook press against my sheath, and I’d… I’d be immensely turned on. I’d be fully out almost immediately, I’d want to slip inside you there and then, and you’d notice, because _gods_ how couldn’t you notice? But you’d be so tired, you’d just… you’d *want* it, you’d ask me for it, you’d be so desperate to fall asleep you’d take damn near anything. Any help you could get to fall asleep. And I’d be nervous, you know? Ha, I can’t believe I put my ineptitude in my own fantasy, but there I’d be, my hands shaking, parting your legs.”

Holy shit, you can’t believe Terezi was telling the truth with the “pailing you at bedtime” thing. That’s… actually really cute. Of course Karkat is a big goober who likes having sleepy sex!

“Karkat, I would have loved that, if you’d done that to me.”

“I- hah- well, good.” Karkat’s face is blissed-out incarnate as he keeps talking. “So I’d… I’d touch you first, and I pictured you softer, not as wet. My imagination could clearly not grasp the possibility of how incredible you’d actually be. I’d slip my fingers inside you, because apparently I’ve trimmed my fucking claws in this dream scenario, and you’d enjoy it, Jade. You’d clutch *desperately* at my shirt, bury your face into my chest, beg for it as I played with you. I’d kiss you, love. I’d be so gentle, I promise, because you’d be falling asleep and sloppy and soft under the covers and, just, I’d want you to feel beyond perfect.”

You focus on the slow push and pull of your and Karkat’s palms as you rub yourself against him. Long, rhythmic thrusting inside you and against your clit is working its wonders. You can’t keep your eyes open to look at him, feeling orgasm build itself up in the muscles of your legs. It’s such a slow progression, like a crescendo, due to the speed you’re going at. “I like this, I like hearing what you want to do to me, Karkat. Keep going, please.”

“I’d pull your long hair back, I’d draw nonsense patterns down your spine to relax you as I touched you. I’d ask you if you wanted my bulge inside you, and you’d _beg_ for it, Jade. I’d pull you on top of me, like how we are now but you’d be lying on me instead of riding me. I’d slip your skirts up, undo my leg brace and pants, and tease you a little, because I’m secretly a huge asshole. I’d slide my bulge along the outside of your nook, everywhere you wanted, not fully pressing in or giving it all.”

You start making some embarrassing little sighs and whimpers, everything is so good and drawing you further into yourself. You can’t focus, you feel so full, just on the edge… You grind a little harder against him, heat powering through your thighs and pelvis and stomach-

“I’m sorry, I- I’m so close, Karkat. Please. Please keep… Keep going-”

“Fuck, Jade, you’re- okay. But your whimpering would get my sheath throbbing and I wouldn’t be able to resist anymore. You could just relax as I thrusted into you, as my bulge worked it’s way in and out of you, as I made you come for me. You’d be warm and in my arms and wrapped under the blankets and I would make you feel good. I’d want to fuck you so sweetly, Jade, I’d fuck you until you were finished and spent and tired enough to sleep, and it’d be nice, it’d be-”

One more press against your clit and you’re climaxing, rocking violently forward into Karkat and reaching for him as the slow buildup comes to a very breathtaking conclusion. You’re in his arms as bliss lights up your body, shaking and gasping.

You shiver with aftershocks against him for a few seconds before breaking out into giggles. You give him a squeeze before you move, propping yourself up by planting elbows on either side of his head. Karkat’s still inside you, which you wouldn’t be okay with if it were a hard human cock, but his bulge is so nice and squishy! It feels perfect even with how tight you are immediately post-orgasm.

Karkat’s got this starstruck smile on his face, and all he says when you make eye contact is, “Wow.”

You wink at him, breathing heavily. “You did that to me, hot stuff. I liked your story! If it wasn’t clear.”

“Clear as crystal, my dear witch.”

“And we should try that later! I’d love for you to touch me like that in bed sometime.”

The blush that spans Karkat’s face is glorious. You give him a gentle pap on the shoulder. “Anyway, what would you like to do? I’ve had my fun. It’s your turn!”

He pulls you into some long, sweet kisses before answering, and when he pushes you gently away, he answers with, “Tell me your darkest fantasies now, since we’ve clearly boarded the dialogue based fuckery train and our stop’s not for a hundred more miles. Er, if you ever thought about me that way. I’m curious.”

Well, not what you planned on doing, but you can work with it! Karkat doesn’t look much more aroused than before, so you guess getting him to dirty talk you wasn’t a good plan. But if Terezi wasn’t lying about what Karkat was into… You think you know just the fantasy to tell to make Karkat feel really good! What did she say again? Power play, gags, and voyeurism? Something like that.

“Of course I thought about you! Get ready to friggin’ come, Karkat, because it’s storytime with Jade Harley! And there will be no boring ‘sex in the missionary position’ scenes here!”

“Oh my god. Also, fuck you, I made you thinkpan hemorrhage with that scene.”

You hold his hands against the grass as you kiss up and down his jawline, eliciting a wonderful little mess of noises from Karkat as you do so. You raise yourself up again, straddling him, feeling his bulge comfortably settle inside you, and start to drag your fingers down his chest.

“Okay, well, this one’s based on actual events, I guess! Remember when we just got into the forest and I wanted to go off somewhere? Before those bandits interrupted us?”

Karkat bites his lip as you gently trail your pointer fingers across his collarbone. “Er, yeah, was I imagining things or were you going to-”

“Violently fap while thinking of you? Yup!” you giggle, and Karkat’s eyes get _wide_. Wow, hot. “But anyway, I was so tense back then… I don’t think it would have worked. It would be like when I fought you and it only made me more grimbark! Like, I would have snuck off behind some trees and started to think about you and touch myself and I would have noticed I was growing more evil by the second. So, um, I would have been feeling really brave and I would have… asked for you to help me. I would have asked for you to hold me down as I masturbated.”

“What the actual fuck?” says Karkat. And his tone is _appalled_ , which makes you start. Did he think that was too gross? But his bulge friggin’ _throbs_ , like you can feel it stretch and compress inside you, and you keep going with a grin on your face.

“And I have this all planned, too! Like, you would have totally been awkwarded out and wouldn’t want to be in my face, so I would have sat in your lap. You would have held one of my arms behind my back, and maybe hugged me tight around the waist or something as I touched myself. See, like this-” you demonstrate, removing your hand from Karkat’s chest and rubbing your clit. His pupils dilate as he watches you, which is pretty incredible. You’re still sensitive, so you don’t go at it too hard. “Would that turn you on, Karkat? Watching me? Would you have liked to help me back then?”

Karkat’s bulge throbs again, warm and full, and his hands grab your thighs hard. His voice is very, very quiet when he whimpers out a, “Yes.”

You stop rubbing yourself, return to dragging your fingers down his ribs and watching him squirm. “But it wouldn’t work very well, it would only make me more evil and frustrated. I’d turn fully grimbark, maybe start crying out your name, kissing you, whispering naughty things to you. I’d want to fuck you so bad-” here, you drag your nails against his neck, hard against his thick skin, and he curses and arches his back for more. “-Would you be able to resist me?”

“Oh fuck, fuck,” he’s gasping, still arching his back as you scratch hard and slow down his shoulders. “No, I couldn’t resist, I wouldn’t- I’d let you go, Jade, I’d want-”

“And then I’d be on top of you! I’d force you down to the ground and bite you, as hard as I could.” You lean down, and do exactly that. Karkat gives you some very good, “ahh, fuck, Jade, *yes*,”’s as you dig your teeth into his collarbone, hard enough to leave a mark. His pheromones envelop your senses, his body writhing under you, his voice wracked with absolute pleasure as you pepper his neck and collarbone with Jade-sized bites. Yum.

You move up to his ear, whisper between gentle tugs on his earrings with your lips. “And evil-me would force myself on you. Maybe queen you or something. I’d make you-”

“What’s queening?” asks Karkat, between gasps.

“Oh, it’s when I sit on your face and you… uh, lick me? So, yes, I’d do that, and-”

You stop because Karkat wrenches you up by the shoulders, narrows his eyes, and stares you down in the most menacing way you have ever seen. “Is that a thing? That’s a thing. Do that to me. Right now. Right. Now.”

You blink at him. “Uh, Karkat? That’s kind of a weird thing to do on our first time. Like, I’m more than happy if you want to go down on me, but I don’t want to accidentally suffocate you while taking your human virginity!”

He raises his eyebrow. “Jade, we are currently having sex while imagining ourselves have sex. We have clearly escaped the boundaries of a classic first time, destroyed the mere notion of it, then looped back around with our sheer unabashed intimacy. Queen me, love. Stick your goddamn nook in my face. Make this shit *memorable.*”

Well, he went along with your dirty talking, so you can totally do this! Not like you won’t enjoy it, hehe. You slide off him with a silly ‘pop’ noise, which makes the both of you giggle. As you crawl over his shoulders, getting adjusted so his head can slide between your thighs, you say, “Oh, wait, Karkat, I forgot, I’ve kind of got your… uh, pre-slurry? All over me. Do you mind?”

He grabs your ass, hard, and you squeak as he says, “Frankly, I’ve done weirder shit with myself, but thanks for your concern.”

You align yourself over him, kneeling up straight. “Karkat, you are going to tell me all about that ‘weird shit’ once we, oh- mmm-”

You don’t even have time to say, ‘wait, your _teeth_ ’ because he’s already got his mouth on you and he’s gentle and warm and performing some serious arcane mystery witchcraft with his tongue. Teeth are the last of your worries as you toss your head back and thread your fingers through his hair, whispering “Oh, god, yes, _yes_ , Karkat-”

He has clearly never done this before and has no idea where he’s supposed to lick and suck, but you don’t bother giving him instructions _quite_ yet because it makes you so giddy and happy and pretty dang aroused to know he’s unabashedly going at you despite having no clue what to do. Every accidental stroke against your clit works some serious wonders all up and down your legs, and when his tongue does this sort of press-thing against your entrance, well, you thought he couldn’t _do_ magic.

You stretch, reach behind you, and thread the tip of his bulge between your fingers. You can feel it throbbing, like, wow, you could take his pulse through that erection. This really does turn him on! You play with it a bit as you angle your hips so Karkat can get better access, saying stuff like, “Right in the front, yeah, there, right there, smaller strokes-”

Continuing your story is a hell of a lot harder now, but you’re Jade Harley! If you’re not known for your sexual stamina, then you don’t want to know what your reputation is. “S-so, I’d make you do this to me, but I’d be evil, so I’d probably press a little harder, you know, smother you a bit.” You’re giving him lots of space, so you have room to lower yourself just a tiiinnnnyyy bit, and his hips jerk up in surprise and his bulge thrashes against your hand when you do so. “I-I’d make you get me off like this, hold you down with my arms and thighs and -oh yes, Karkat, right there- and you wouldn’t be able to throw me off. I’d use you for my own pleasure like this. You wouldn’t be able to break away from my touch. You’d b-be so turned on, just like, just like right now, and- oh- Karkat, I’m c-c-”

You have to break off, because one of those secret surprise second orgasms is sneaking up on you, one of those quick ones that hit your body out of nowhere. You clamp your thighs around his head, rock forward as your muscles convulse, plant your hands in the grass and focus on Karkat coaxing you through another orgasm. And, bless him, he doesn’t stop his motion until sensitivity gets in the way and you’re raising your hips and whimpering, “Oh, stop, stop, it’s too much-”

You get off him, climbing back down over his chest, and Karkat is quivering with arousal. His bulge is rubbing itself against his thigh and there is no way he’s controlling it anymore. He wipes his mouth off with the back of his wrist with a shaking hand as you settle yourself down against him once more. You feel his bulge slap itself against your ass, which would be really funny and you would laugh at that if Karkat didn’t look so, uh, hormonal. “Oh, goddess,” he whimpers, clutching your shoulders. “I- fuck, can’t- can’t think in Common- _< you’re so fucking attractive, I would put myself between your thighs anytime, whenever you want, for hours upon hours upon hours, and I- Jade, can I go all the way inside you? Please let me. Please.  >_”

He’s _really_ turned on, wow. You really want him to feel good! You can do this! “I… I can try. Can you like, fold the tip down or something? It’s not so much your girth as your length.”

Karkat squints, focusing on something, and you feel his bulge shift, doing what you asked of him.

Karkat clutches onto your hips as you straddle him and slip over him, pushing much quicker than you did before. You don’t stop until the base of his pelvis hits yours and you feel yourself stretch out full and warm. Sweet! Jade Harley- conquer of huge ass cock. Karkat’s bulge is squirming a little inside you, unable to do much because of how tight you are, and it’s kind of fun. He’s blushing up a storm, even his shoulders turning a little pink in the moonlight, and smells like he’s in the midst of a troll orgy. He’s close!

“< _Fuuuuck, you feel good, I don’t even-_ >”

You reach out, and gently press your hand against his lips, shutting him up. Karkat’s eyes open wide in sexy, sexy realization. “Shhh, I’m not done with my fantasy yet. I think you’ll really like the next part.”

Karkat’s fingers flex against your hips as you use your non-gag of a hand to scratch gentle little circles against his chest. “Anyway, when I came, I’d be back to normal Jade, no grimbark at all. But you’d still be so turned on, you’d want more of me so badly, you’d barely be able to take it. You’d be shaking! And I’d be a little embarrassed and still a little turned on and I’d have a huge crush on you so… I’d let you fuck me. I’d let you take as long as you needed. Hours, if you wanted.”

Karkat gasps under your hand, his back arching, his breathing hot and heavy. You can’t stop the giddiness in your voice as you keep going. “You’d be sooooo into it, it’d be really hot. You’d press me hard into the ground, on top of me, and hold me down with your whole self as you pailed the living daylights out of me. I’d be a mess, Karkat, you’d make me feel really good having your way, your hands around my wrists, your teeth on my neck… And when you came, I’d probably come again too, because simultaneous orgasms are totally romant-”

Karkat moans something into your hand, which you _think_ might be the Alternian word for “coming.” His eyes fall shut, his body goes limp against the ground, his bulge swells thick inside you, and Karkat Vantas begins to have the calmest orgasm you have ever seen in your life.

Seriously. You would have thought he straight up died if you didn’t feel what his bulge was doing. It’s pulsing, slowly pushing slurry out and into you. Oh, jeez, he’s going to come a whole bucketful of stuff into you. It’s going to look like a crime scene down there. At least it's warm and nice, like, having sex in a hot spring or something.

You prop yourself up around his head with your elbows, twirling his hair around the base of his horn as he comes. His eyes are still shut, his breathing calm, like he’s meditating. You can’t help but giggle a little. “Karkat, I thought you’d be a screamer! You’re so quiet.”

Karkat’s eyes open, half-lidded and gorgeous, his pupils wide and swallowing up the moonlight around you. Two tears roll down against the edges of his cheeks, and you would usually poke fun of him for that but right now it’s so genuine and sweet.

“Oh, Karkat,” you say, wiping them away with the flat of your thumb. “You’re leaking.”

“ _< Kiss me._ >” he says.

Karkat’s tone appears to have taken on the form of the suavest motherfucker in the history of time. It’s scratchy, with this sleepy, dark flow to it that kind of makes you want to fuck his voice until you come a billion more times. You are very happy to oblige, kissing him soft and sloppy as Karkat has his super long troll orgasm.

Karkat’s not very careful, poking you a few times with his teeth and drawing a little blood, but you don’t mind. It’s cute!

He weakly pushes you away when his tongue flicks against your lips, noticing he pricked you, and says, “Fuck, sorry. Anyway, I-I-I'd rather...” He trails off, his hand pressing against your cheek, sliding your hair back behind your ear. “ _< Come here, moon and stars, I’d like to whisper sweet nothings to you while getting really fucking high off of troll endorphins, before the post-orgasm fallout makes me regret everything I just said in a slew of embarrassment.  >_”

He pulls you in, you press your cheek to his, he places his lips near your ear, and he just _goes._ Launches into full on whisper ramble mode, in that sexy, sexy dark Karkat voice. Unfortunately, he does it entirely in his local, really obscure Alternian dialect, and you can’t understand much of it. You catch your name many times, something about taking up your banner and fighting in your name, something about enjoying your body, your company, your intelligence, lots of erotic stuff and stuff about your ass, everything. There’s a lot of metaphors you don’t pick up, and wow, you have got to get Karkat a poetry diary or something because this is ridiculous. It makes you all giddy to know he’s _this_ into you, essentially able to compose an essay about you at the drop of a hat while orgasming, and you feel like your heart is going to burst with happiness.

Karkat’s bulge starts to, uh, deflate. His slurry begins to trickle down your thighs in streams, down Karkat’s hips, and it’s a very good thing that you know troll genetic material makes a great fertilizer otherwise Kanaya would get _really_ upset with Karkat coming in the middle of her garden. Still, you probably shouldn’t let him spill too much all over the grass, this stuff doesn’t evaporate for a while.

Karkat’s calmed down too, his words trailing off quietly as he runs his fingers through your hair, kissing the tip of your ear. You whisper, “Hey, Karkat, I’m sorry for this, but I’m going to teleport us to my bathroom! It’d be rude to let free the floodgates in the middle of Kanaya’s garden!”

“ _< Gross.  >_” whimpers Karkat. You concentrate hard on the wooden, grated floor of your bathroom, summon up all your green light, and teleport there in an instant.

You’re in the same position, on top of Karkat and nestled into his collarbone, and you can see the magically activated flash of lights turn on at your arrival and hear Karkat hiss, “Oh, fuck, that’s bright.”

You raise yourself up, not as bothered by the change in lighting, and give Karkat a gentle pat on the shoulders. Your bathroom is nice and cozy compared to the other private royal baths— just a big claw bathtub in the corner for soaking and a few wooden washbasins to clean yourself with. You snap your fingers, and the enchanted washbasins fill with warm water, ready to go! You have to keep the washbasins away from Karkat, but him just touching the water should be fine.

This is going to be fun.

You spend your first-time-post-orgasm bliss helping each other clean up. It isn’t as romantic as it could be because he can’t get his residual limb wet, which means no sleepy post-wash soak in the tub, but it’s still really fun pouring water on him, popping soap bubbles, and giving each other lots and lots of soft kisses. You dry each other off, filled with laughter and sweet nothings and close breaths, and you carry him to your bedroom. You lend him a pair of your pajama pants, which you help pin up so he’s able to wear them. You put on a cute, short, lacy nightgown, the kind of nightgown that’s fun to wear alone but is much better to show off to someone.

You give him a twirl as he eyes you up from the edge of your four poster bed. “Shit, you look so good in that I think I want to rip it off with my teeth and fuck you *again,* which kind of moots the point of sexy snoozegarments but whatever.”

You crawl on top of him, slowly pushing him down against the bed as he runs his hands through your clean hair. “Um, hell yes, you’re totally doing that tomorrow morning! But I think right now all I want to do is snuggle up next to you and go to sleep.”

“That is the best plan you’ve ever had,” he says. His eyes flick to your lips. “I mean that.”

You kiss him as you both move backwards and crawl under the covers. You almost feel even more giddy than when you first started this whole debacle— Karkat, laying next to you, in your cozy bed, after you made love to him. Karkat, your knight-to-be, for whom you’d take down the whole world for.

“As much as I’d like you to be the big grubsoup scooping device to my little grubsoup scooping device, I can’t roll over on this fucking thing.” You think he gestures at his residual limb here, but you’re not sure because he’s under the blankets. “As a weak replacement, you should sleep on top of me. Jade blanket is best blanket.”

“Uh, won’t that crush your ribs or something if I’m there all night?”

“My ribs are grotesquely swole, Jade. Grotesquely. Swole.”

You roll on top of him while whispering, “Swole like your diiiiiick-” before Karkat pinches your nose and you sputter out into giggles.

You think later you’ll settle more into the crook of his arm and sleep like you’re stargazing, but for now you position yourself flat on top of him and prop yourself up on your elbows over his face. You like this pose! Looking into Karkat’s eyes and feeling all gooey and warm. “This alright?” you ask.

“Yeah, any throbbing my stump is doing is entirely not your fault, and is, in fact, the fault of my poor circulatory system unable to deal with the killer pailing session we just participated in.”

A little wave of shame hits you, thinking of him hurting like this, and you bite your lip and hide yourself in his collarbone. “Gosh, Karkat, I know you won’t like me saying this, but I still feel really guilty and I want to say again that I am so, so sorry for-”

Karkat hugs you tight to him, then says quite gently, “Hey, fuckwad, news flash: I forgive you. If there’s anything to forgive, which, news flash number two: there isn’t. I should actually say sorry for stealing your amputee disability spotlight, which, I’m sorry for, in a way. But hey, I know your raging guilt boner isn’t going to deflate anytime soon, so here’s something you can do for me instead of wilting in your self-inflicted shame.”

He pushes gently on the back of your head, and you prop yourself up again, your hair falling against his shoulder. He’s smiling a little when he says, “Help me out. Support me, like I’ll support you, my witch.”

You grin. “I like that idea. I like when you call me that, when you call me ‘your witch.’ I like it almost as much as I like it when you… ah…”

You want to say ‘when you call me ‘your love’’ but that would require you to say some things you’re not sure you’re ready for. Not because you’re not sure of your feelings, but because you’re not sure if Karkat feels them back. You’re not even sure if he knows what it even _means_ , he’s probably calling you that because he thinks it’s some kind of vaguely cute human pet name. Which it is, but…

Oh, fuck it. You’re here. Why not.

“Hey, Karkat? I’ve got something important to tell you.”

“Is it ‘I have a human crush on you’ because I already know, and have already known, because I am secretly a divining seer with magic powers that I have been hiding from you this entire time.”

“You got me! Wow! I am so shocked! How did you know, mystery seer?”

“Intuition, pixie dust, and the fact that we might have fucked each other in a wet slew of delicious feelings that I’m still strongly feeling the aftereffects of and will continue to forever.” He pulls you down to kiss you as you giggle, then lets you go. “No, seriously, what’s so important?”

“Well, I know you don’t know what this means, but…” You break out into a wide grin. “I’ve fallen in love with you, Karkat. I love you dearly, very dearly, and that feeling won’t ever go away.”

He stares at you for a few seconds, before giving that wonderful dark little laugh with the cutest sort of smile on his face. Is he going to look at you like that all the time now? Gosh, you don’t think your heart will be able to take it.

“Incomprehensible human emotions,” he whispers, before bringing you in for more kisses. “You’ve got too many, lover.”

You mack on him for a while before pulling back with a frown. “Oh my gosh, Karkat, you’re dodging answering me with your succubus ways. C’mon, tell me what you think!”

“I think…” he narrows his eyes, his teeth poking out against his bottom lip. “I think you need to explain it to me. In detail. I think you need to throw your knight a cultural acceptance bone and let me slobber all over it. In fact, I need you to demonstrate 'love' to me, over and over, and try to cram it into my thick thinkpan and let me digest the feeling and see if it sits.”

“But I have been demonstrating it. It’s kind of hard not to! I’ve been doing it for… Gosh, I dunno, quite some time.”

Karkat’s grin is instantaneous. “Oh, is that it, then? Well, fuck it, then I’ve fallen in love with you too.”

You didn’t think you could get more happy and floaty than you already were, but this makes you physically feel like you’re stretching with how many feelings are trying to get out of your chest. Karkat kind of looks like that too, that smile that’s so different from how he acts in public plastered on his face, and _gods_ you love this man. You love your knight, goddammit.

“Although, just to be sure,” continues Karkat. “We should probably continue testing said feelings theory. You know, doing nice things for each other, sharing our thoughts, communicating, protecting each other, and most importantly… fucking our way across the continents.”

“Karkat, that is such a good idea, I am going to have sex with you in _so_ many places. Wow.” You snuggle against him, laying your head down against his warm chest. “I guess the communication stuff is important too. Maybe.”

“Vastly less important.”

“Oh, for sure.”

You’re comfortably silent for a few minutes, before Karkat says, “You were kidding, right?”

“Yes, I was. Communication is really important!”

“Okay, excellent, just checking.”

You take off your glasses, place them on your nightstand. You raise your arm out from under the covers, snap once, and the lights go out. Everything’s super dark in your room— while you usually enjoy a nightlight, you have to say it’s really really fun sleeping with someone in the pitch black. You wiggle against Karkat, kissing up his neck and his jawline until you find his mouth, and then kissing that until he angles himself so he can smooch down _your_ neck in the dark.

You giggle the whole time, until you say, “Hey, Karkat?”

“What?”

You slip back down him, nestle in the crook of his arm. “What are we going to do next?”

“Like, grand existential scheme of things? Because I think we got that pretty well covered. That shit is so well covered it’s slathered in oinkbeast grease, deep fried, and shat back out by a cannibalistic barn animal.”

“I… uh, what? Nevermind, don’t answer that. No, I mean, short term. What adventure are we going to go on?”

“The adventure of: get Karkat healed up so he doesn’t look like a broken pickled egg. Six hundred experience points, minus one to constitution. Or, even shorter term: Laugh really hard when Kankri discovers I am not where I’m supposed to be and has a mild undead panic attack, bulgeblock Vriska from pityfucking me, and try to spawn some kind of tall tale when they find all my clothes and a mysterious stain scattered on the elongated lawn matter.”

“How many experience points is that quest?”

“Eight thousand.”

“Oh my gosh, we are so leveling up tomorrow.” You try to pap his face, miss, and accidentally smack him in the forehead and he groans in retaliation. “Oops, sorry, Karkat! That was supposed to be cute. I meant, uh-” you pap around until you get to his cheek, eliciting a slew of ‘I’m so done’ noises from your knight-to-be. “There we go! Okay, so I think we should plan for after that, though? Like, should we start with a fetch quest or more like a ‘clear out some rats in a basement’ kind of quest? I’m thinking the latter, for our two person party! You’ve got to get adjusted to however you’re going to walk, so-”

“Jade Harley,” and you hear the tender smile in his whisper here, see it through even the pure darkness. “Shut the fuck up.”

“Never.” you whisper. “Never, ever, ever, my knight. I will never shut up, not once. I am going to talk your ear off into eternity.”

“I’ll accept that, as long as I can talk off yours.”

“That sounds like the kind of deal I’d like to take.”

“Anyway, I think the first quest should be for us to go the fuck to sleep. Nine hundred billion experience points, it’s awesome, we become gods, etcetera.” He’s silent for a bit, before hugging you tight and warm under the blankets. “I… er, love. You?”

You giggle in reply. “Oh gosh, that was awful. Say it when you’re confident! Anyway, goodnight, I love you, sleep well, and I can’t wait to wake up next to you in the morning.”

“I can’t either.” His whisper is so quiet you can barely hear it, but you manage to make out his voice in his lovely Alternian. “< _Goodnight, moon and stars._ >”

You listen to Karkat’s heartbeat as he drifts off, staying awake even though he doesn’t. It’s steady, rock solid, and a reminder that he’s there and alive with you. You made it through, you made it through this silly adventure together, and you can’t wait to listen to his heartbeat for many more nights to come.

You’re glad you got that curse. You’re glad Rose pushed you into going to see Karkat. You’re glad there wasn’t an alternate option to going down this path. You’re glad the stars aligned to send you and Karkat spiraling into friendship and respect and a partnership that’s going to be permanent. You’re happy. Really, really, _really_ happy, for the first time in a long time.

You struggled and cried and fought and had fun and bonded and healed some wounds and fell in love and gained a knight. That, that was what you call an adventure. That adventure would make all the other adventurers you know jealous, would send them into fits if they knew what an incredible journey you went on.

You’ve got plenty to do in the aftermath. Prosthesis to make, Araneas to punish, mothers to talk to about getting Karkat knighted again… But that all can wait until tomorrow, can wait until Karkat is there to hold hands with, until he’s there to kiss down your back as you work and distract you from your calculations.

Because right now, you’ve got a nine hundred billion experience point quest to complete.

And you plan on leveling right the fuck up.

 

 

 

 

**THE END **

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All done.
> 
> Thank you for reading and for all your support and kudos and wonderful comments! I couldn't have finished it without you guys.
> 
>  **DVD EXTRAS**  
> [Alternate Ending](http://oxfordroulette.dreamwidth.org/8624.html#cutid1) (happens instead of the last chapter)  
> [Cum mortuis in lingua mortua tag on my tumblr](http://oxfordroulette.tumblr.com/tagged/cum-mortuis-in-lingua-mortua) (features some pictures/backstory I didn't include in the final draft)  
> [An FST I made that's half joke, half DEAD SERIOUS](http://8tracks.com/oxfordroulette/shit-lets-be-necromancers)
> 
>  **FANWORK GALLERY**  
> [FST - Just Kiss Already](http://8tracks.com/merrygentlemen/just-kiss-already) \- merrygentlemen  
> [Jade/Karkat bodyshare c-c-combo art](http://tabula-wasa.tumblr.com/post/107527781958/with-the-dead-in-a-dead-language-from-a-super)\- tabula-wasa
> 
> (please let me know if you make something! I might not catch it otherwise)  
>  
> 
> And that's it! Maybe. Would you guys be interested in a darker/worldbuilding-based sequel? It'd be about the quarter of the length. Let me know if you're interested or if you enjoyed this one enough to read another silly fantasy AU.


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